Yet, in August 2025 the administration proposed rescinding the Roadless Rule for more than 45 million acres of national forest lands across 36 states and Puerto Rico. While the comment period is now closed, the Forest Service signaled it will be preparing an Environmental Impact Statement that may include another opportunity to provide comments. In the meantime, the administration will continue to attack the Roadless Rule, and it is important to understand why these protections matter for wildlife like grizzly bears.

Grizzlies need large, connected landscapes to find food, raise cubs, and move between secure habitats. Roads create serious risks and barriers for bears. They fragment habitat, reduce available food sources, and allow people to penetrate deep into wild country, leading to higher chances of bear conflicts and deaths. Motorized use on old roads, trails and areas causes significant habitat disruption and harassment of individual bears, especially when females emerge from their dens with their cubs. Protecting roadless areas gives grizzlies the space and safety they need to recover and eventually thrive.

• Roadless Areas provide some of the highest value areas for grizzly bear connectivity, for female bears that includes roughly 7.7 million acres, and for male bears that includes 6.7 million acres. This represents 48% and 44% respectively of the highest value connectivity pathways needed to reconnect isolated populations.

• Rescinding the 2001 National Roadless Area Conservation Rule threatens grizzly bear recovery by stripping away protections in Montana and Wyoming, including habitat grizzlies need for connectivity. This includes roughly 4.4 million acres within female connectivity pathways, and 4.3 million acres for males.    

• Many acres of Roadless Areas are adjacent to other protected lands, such as congressionally designated wilderness areas. “This provides a major cumulative benefit for large animals, such as the grizzly bear, by increasing the size of security areas and improving travel ways to other habitat.” 

• The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service often relies on Roadless Area protections to support grizzly bear recovery and explained they “can enhance the security of habitat for grizzly bears since these designations protect grizzly bear habitat from new road construction, new oil and gas development, new livestock allotments, and timber harvest.”