Document Type
Article
Subject Area
Symposium
Abstract
When a grizzly bear kills a fisherman in C.J. Box’s Three-Inch Teeth, the attack occurs in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains—territory where bears “weren’t supposed to be.” This fictional scenario reflects a real dilemma: grizzly bears have recovered so successfully that they now roam beyond designated recovery zones, yet federal delisting efforts have repeatedly failed, caught between contested science and competing narratives about connectivity requirements, ESA policies, federal authority, state and local control, and the prospects for coexistence with apex other predators.
This Article examines how popular culture, legal frameworks, and conservation science intersect to shape wildlife policy. Box’s novel— mixing biological accuracy with dramatic license—both reflects and amplifies the competing narratives that operate beneath explicit policy debates. These narratives about species vulnerability, federal versus state management authority, and human–wildlife conflict risk have become embedded in legal frameworks. The result is a governance system in which connectivity is both essential for conservation and a barrier to delisting, and where the challenge extends beyond managing bears to managing the cultural contexts of human–wildlife coexistence.
DOI
10.59643/1942-9916.1535
Rights
Copyright © 2026 by the Wyoming Law Review unless otherwise noted. Except as otherwise provided, copies of any article may be made for classroom use, provided that: (1) copies are distributed at or below cost; (2) The author and journal are identified; (3) Proper notice of copyright is affixed to each copy; and (4) The Wyoming Law Review is notified of the use.
Recommended Citation
Temple Stoellinger,
Kelly Dunning,
David Willms,
Arthur Middleton,
& Bethany Aragon,
Predators and Precedents: Grizzly Bears, Joe Pickett, and the Law of Delisting,
26 Wyo. L. Rev.
233
(2026).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/wlr/vol26/iss1/10