Billings, Mont. » Fewer run-ins between Yellowstone grizzly bears and hunters and renewed efforts to protect them led to a sharp drop in bruin deaths in 2009, officials say, but the decline has failed to quiet growing concerns about the long-term fate of the species.

The lower death toll comes just a year after a record number of the region's grizzlies were killed. In September, they were returned to the threatened list.

Biologists say it's unlikely this year's death toll will grow much beyond an estimated 46 killed so far, because the massive bears are denning up for the winter. Seventy-nine were killed last year -- by hunters acting in self-defense, wildlife officials dealing with problem bears, natural causes and vehicles slamming into the animals.

Environmentalists pointed to last year's deaths as evidence the bear's slow recovery from near-extermination had turned sour. They argued in part that climate change was forever altering the animal's food supply. But federal officials say last year -- when a short summer drove hungry bears out of deep wilderness and into areas where they got into trouble -- will likely be an exception.

"It was just one of those bad years and it looks like the good years are coming back," said Chuck Schwartz, a U.S. Geological Survey biologist who leads a multi-agency grizzly research team.

This year's warmer weather saw food sources rebound, meaning fewer

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bears ran into hunters after being forced to widen their search for nourishment. Also, state and federal land managers took extra pains to educate hunters and hikers about safety in bear country.

A recent population estimate showed the Yellowstone region has about 580 bears. That's down from almost 600 last year and the first decline in a quarter century.

Nevertheless, Schwartz said the population's long-term trend -- increasing about 2 to 4 percent annually -- still holds.

Yellowstone's grizzlies were removed from the threatened species list in 2007. At the time, officials in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming heralded the federal decision. They said it was proof conservation efforts had successfully shielded bears from pressures ranging from logging to new home construction.

Hunting remained illegal, although some officials began to push for an eventual bear season.

Then, in September, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had acted too hastily. Molloy said climate change, conflicts with humans and lax protections kept bears at continued risk. He ordered their threatened status restored.

Federal officials asked Molloy to reconsider, arguing that the danger posed by the loss of a key bear food source -- nuts from whitebark pine trees -- had been overstated. In a ruling issued last week, the judge shot down that argument. "Every study suggests the opposite," he wrote in the Nov. 17 order.

Chris Servheen, the head of Fish and Wildlife's grizzly recovery program, said bears could adapt. He said around Glacier National Park and adjacent wilderness areas in northern Montana, whitebark pine trees vanished 50 years ago -- yet the bear population has since grown to almost 800 animals.

Lance Craighead, director of the Bozeman-based Craighead Environmental Research Institute, said he was less optimistic about Yellowstone's bears.

The biggest threat to the animals in years past was garbage, which drew them into areas where they would get into conflicts with humans, Craighead said. Today, he said, it's climate change -- a less understood but potentially much greater threat.

Warmer weather is blamed for a recent, widespread die-off of whitebark pine trees, possibly pushing bears into inhabited areas -- and getting them into trouble -- as they search for other food.

"Climate change could have real serious consequences," Craighead said. "I think they'll hang on, but I don't think they'll continue to increase the way they have been."