On December 4, 2017, President Donald Trump ordered an 85 percent (about 1.3 million acres) reduction in the size of the monument.
The boundaries were redrawn with two noncontiguous units named Indian Creek and Shash Jáa; the latter unit includes the Bears Ears buttes.
Trump also reduced the size of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly 47 percent on the same day.

The monument's reduction was seen as a victory for Republican officials and energy companies with mining leases for fossil fuel and uranium deposits, and a defeat for environmentalists and Native American tribes.
Internal documents of the Interior Department obtained by The New York Times include the state of Utah's interest in potential mining revenue on state trust lands within the original monument.
Any such revenue would benefit the state's public school system.
About a month before Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke began his review of national monuments, Senator Orrin Hatch’s office sent a map with reduced monument boundaries to Interior Department officials.
Those proposed new boundaries were mostly incorporated into the actual reduction.

More than 300 uranium mining claims are located inside the original monument boundaries, with the large majority of those claims being located outside the reduced boundaries.
Energy Fuels, a Canadian uranium producer which operates the only uranium mine and mill near the monument's original boundaries via their US subsidiary Energy Fuels Resources, holds about one third of those claims.
The company, along with other mining firms, had lobbied hard for the reduction.
On December 4, 2017, President Donald Trump ordered an 85 percent (about 1.3 million acres) reduction in the size of the monument. The boundaries were redrawn with two noncontiguous units named Indian Creek and Shash Jáa; the latter unit includes the Bears Ears buttes. Trump also reduced the size of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly 47 percent on the same day.
The monument's reduction was seen as a victory for Republican officials and energy companies with mining leases for fossil fuel and uranium deposits, and a defeat for environmentalists and Native American tribes. Internal documents of the Interior Department obtained by The New York Times include the state of Utah's interest in potential mining revenue on state trust lands within the original monument. Any such revenue would benefit the state's public school system. About a month before Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke began his review of national monuments, Senator Orrin Hatch’s office sent a map with reduced monument boundaries to Interior Department officials. Those proposed new boundaries were mostly incorporated into the actual reduction.
More than 300 uranium mining claims are located inside the original monument boundaries, with the large majority of those claims being located outside the reduced boundaries. Energy Fuels, a Canadian uranium producer which operates the only uranium mine and mill near the monument's original boundaries via their US subsidiary Energy Fuels Resources, holds about one third of those claims. The company, along with other mining firms, had lobbied hard for the reduction.
Bears Ears National Monument