when did bears ears become a national monument
December 28, 2016
title: Bears Ears National Monument text: Bears Ears National Monument Bears Ears National Monument is a United States national monument located in San Juan County in southeastern Utah, established by President Barack Obama by presidential proclamation on December 28, 2016. The monument's original size was , which was controversially reduced 85% by President Donald Trump on December 4, 2017. The monument protects the public land surrounding the Bears Ears—a pair of buttes—and the Indian Creek corridor rock climbing area. The Native American names for the buttes have the same meaning in each of the languages represented in the region. The names are listed in the presidential title: Bears Ears National Monument text: In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Antiquities Act of 1906 which gave presidents the power "to create national monuments — a kind of second-tier national park—when federal land contains objects that are threatened by outside forces or which are especially deserving of emergency protection." in "recognition of the enduring power and dignity emanating from the earliest societies on this continent." According to a 2017 article in "The Atlantic", the "act was explicitly passed to shield sites of historical or indigenous importance from pot hunting, in which Americans would loot artifacts from archaeological sites or abandoned dwellings and title: Bears Ears National Monument text: president since 1963. The largest previous reduction by acreage was President Woodrow Wilson's 1915 removal of from the Mount Olympus National Monument established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1909. The largest reduction by percentage was Navajo National Monument by 90% (from about 3715 acres to 360 acres) by President William Howard Taft in 1912 after he established it three years prior. Bears Ears National Monument Bears Ears National Monument is a United States national monument located in San Juan County in southeastern Utah, established by President Barack Obama by presidential proclamation on December 28, 2016. The monument's original size was , title: Bears Ears National Monument text: bones and tracks, among many of the other fragile features in Bears Ears. On December 28, 2016, President Obama proclaimed the Bears Ears National Monument, including the eponymous buttes and the surrounding landscapes, using his authority under the Antiquities Act to create national monuments by proclamation. The intertribal coalition proposed the inclusion of several areas that did not make it into the final monument designation; these included the Abajo Mountains (also called the Blue Mountains); the lower reach of Allen Canyon; Black Mesa; a "large, arcing strip of land" next to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, surrounding Mancos Mesa; title: Bears Ears National Monument text: by a number of the region's Native American tribes. Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings dated to more than 3,500 years ago have been discovered in the region, just some of the estimated 100,000 archaeological sites protected within the monument. The Comb Ridge monocline traverses the eastern portion of the monument's Shash Jáa unit. Of the 1.35 million acres of the original monument designation, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees 1.06 million acres and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) manages 289,000 acres. Of the 201,876 acres of the current monument designation, the BLM oversees approximately 169,289 acres and the USFS manages