KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) - Montana is poised to end its grizzly bear monitoring program in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem at the year's end unless federal agencies pitch in, state wildlife officials said Tuesday.

The decision was announced at a meeting of state and federal officials in charge of grizzly bear management and recovery in the ecosystem _ which includes Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and surrounding lands.

The state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department has run out of money to continue the program, which involves as many as 25 collared female grizzly bears on 6 million acres, said Jim Satterfield, a regional FWP administrator in Kalispell.

"This is not a bluff," he said. "Without federal partners, we're done with this project. We can't afford it."

The monitoring effort costs about $250,000 a year, but a memo from Wildlife Division Administrator Ken McDonald states that money for the program has been exhausted, other than funds for the program leader's salary.

If monitoring does not continue, grizzlies in northwestern Montana have "zero chance" of being removed from protections under the Endangered Species Act, Satterfield said program leader Rick Mace told the panel.

Grizzly bears in the Yellowstone National Park area are slated to be delisted next Monday.

Not removing grizzlies in the Glacier area from federal protections presents huge implications for ongoing research.

Most notably, the grizzly monitoring program is linked to DNA studies by the U.S. Geological Survey aimed at providing a rough estimate of area bear populations. Further work is scheduled this year, and Satterfield said even a one-year interruption in such research compromises its statistical validity.

"If you don't continue with this monitoring project, all her work is for naught," he said, referring to USGS researcher Kate Kendall.

Finding money to continue the monitoring program will likely occur at "higher levels" than the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem committee, Satterfield said.

"I think everybody understands what's at stake here," he said.