In this file photo taken on Oct. 8, 2012, a Grizzly bear mother and her cub walk near Pelican Creek in the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, the United States. (AFP Photo)

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Environmental groups Friday hailed a federal court's decision to temporary halt grizzly bear hunts in and around Yellowstone National Park in the United States that was set to start this Saturday.

A hearing was held Thursday in the federal court in Missoula of the U.S. state of Montana, in which a coalition of local tribal and conservation interests tried to challenge the Trump administration's decision to strip Yellowstone's grizzly bears of endangered species protections.

Even though U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen delayed his ruling at that day but he endorsed the groups motion later and warranted a temporary restraining order (TRO) stalling the bear hunting season for 14 days.

In a 5-paper order, Christensen said he needs time to decide whether the federal government should reinstate federal protections for the bears since "the court finds that the plaintiffs' arguments raise serious questions going to the merits."

In the order, he also wrote that the impending hunt would cause irreparable harm to grizzly bears "because once a member of an endangered species has been injured, the task of preserving that species becomes all the more difficult."

Tim Preso, Earthjustice attorney who showed up in the hearing, hailed the order as a big victory for conservationists.

"As we explained to the judge today, the removal of protections for Yellowstone's iconic grizzlies was illegal. The bears should not be killed in a hunting season made possible by an illegal government decision," he said in a statement issued by Earthjustice Friday.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made a decision last June to strip Yellowstone's grizzly bears of endangered species protections. This move led to the Wyoming state drew a plan for trophy hunting of grizzlies, authorizing a hunt beginning Saturday for 22 grizzly bears in the area surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

State of Idaho also has authorized a hunt for a single grizzly bear starting on Sept. 1.

A dozen bear hunt licenses have been issued by the states out of thousands of applications. It would be Wyoming's first hunt since 1974 and Idaho's first since 1946.

Since then, wildlife advocates then filed a lawsuit against the decision, arguing that grizzly bears are nowhere near recovery as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service evaluated and continue to need the strong protections of the Endangered Species Act.

Tens of thousands of grizzly bears once lived in North America, but hunters killed most of them in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The population of grizzlies living in Yellowstone dipped to just 136 before it was classified as a threatened species in 1975.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initially declared a successful recovery for the Yellowstone population in 2007 and tried to lift the hunt ban, but a federal judge ordered protections to remain in place.

The government's own estimate of the Yellowstone grizzly population was 695 in 2016.