The park is a prime habitat for grizzly bear, but the species was extirpated from the region by 1860. Only two grizzly bear sightings occurred in the decade before 2015, and these were outside the park boundary in Canada. In 1991, a decision was reached by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, a US Government land management agency committee, to make efforts to restore self-sustaining populations of grizzlies in the North Cascades region, which included the national park and surrounding national forests. In 1997, the North Cascades region was added to the National Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan; by 2017, the environmental impact statement for grizzly bear restoration was still in the public comment stage. Various action plans had been proposed to reestablish a self-sustaining population of 200 grizzlies in the region.