A federal judge on Monday put the region’s roughly 600 grizzly bears back under the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

The decision was an apparent victory for conservation groups who say the bear is still threatened by a lack of secure habitat and a declining population of whitebark pine trees, a food source.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed federal protections for the bears in 2007 after the animals were a threatened species for 32 years. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition filed the lawsuit in Missoula, Mont., shortly after the bears were removed from the endangered species list. Other groups have a lawsuit pending in an Idaho court.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said state laws and regulations were inadequate to protect grizzly bears. He also cited a decline in whitebark pines — a key food source that is disappearing because of a mountain pine beetle infestation and an invasive fungus called blister rust. Researchers say climate change could be playing a role in the tree’s decline.

In his ruling, Molloy said state plans to manage the animals in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana “are premised on monitoring and future actions, and they contain few, if any, enforcement standards.”

Molloy also said there is a “disconnect” between the decision to delist and the science U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists relied on to make that decision.

“The service downplays the relationship between whitebark pine and grizzly bear survival, asserting that the best available science shows there is not as strong a relationship as once thought,” he said. “However, the studies relied on by the service belie this claim.

These studies still state that there is a connection between whitebark pine and grizzly survival.”

Doug Honnold, managing attorney of the Bozeman, Mont., Earthjustice office, praised Molloy’s decision.

“It’s the culmination of many years of fighting the Fish and Wildlife Service’s ill-advised efforts to declare premature victory and walk away from the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear population,” he said.

Craig Kenworthy, conservation director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, was also pleased with the ruling.

“It’s a great result for grizzly bears,” he said. “We hope the Fish and Wildlife Service will go back to the drawing board and come up with a workable plan, a plan that has enforceable standards in it.”

A Fish and Wildlife spokesman declined to comment directly on Molloy’s ruling, saying agency staff needed to review it.

“We’re going to take some time with this rule because it’s so significant,” spokesman Matt Kales said. “This is obviously a pretty big policy matter for us. Our first and foremost concern remains with the status of the bear.”