Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Yellowstone Grizz Population Stable, Bear Deaths Decline

Fewer Grizzly Bears Dying in Yellowstone Area
Numbers appear to be holding stable as officials consider lifting protections for the animals

By ASSOCIATED PRESS // Oct 29, 2014 //

BILLINGS � Fewer threatened grizzly bears are being killed in and around Yellowstone National Park, and scientists said Wednesday their numbers appear to be holding stable as officials consider lifting protections for the animals.

If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service eliminates protections, it would open the door to limited hunting in the Yellowstone region of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

At least 757 bears inhabit the region, although researchers say that�s a highly conservative figure.

During a Wednesday meeting of state and federal wildlife agencies in Montana, scientists said a new counting method indicates roughly 1,000 grizzlies in the Yellowstone region, with the population growing zero to 2 percent annually.

Twenty bears have been reported killed or removed from that population so far this year, said Frank van Manen, a grizzly researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey.

By comparison, a record 56 grizzlies were reported killed or removed in 2012, and 29 last year.

Most bears die following conflicts with humans. Those range from hunters shooting bears in self-defense to wildlife agents capturing and killing bears that attack livestock or damage property.

In a case earlier this month outside Yellowstone, wildlife officials euthanized a 28-year-old bear that tried to get into a storage building containing horse feed.

This week, two young bears were captured and later released after they raided residents� apple trees in Gardiner, Montana, just outside the park�s north entrance. The bears were relocated in hopes of heading off further problems as food sources dwindle with the approach of winter, Montana officials said Wednesday.

Conflicts had been steadily increasing earlier this decade, including several high-profile instances of bears attacking and killing tourists and hikers. But overall conflicts have been easing since 2012.

�Things are looking really good for the second year in a row,� van Manen said. �This is where we�d rather be, with fewer (bear) mortalities, fewer conflicts with hunters, fewer issues with bears getting into garbage or conflicts with livestock.�

However, van Manen cautioned that human run-ins with bears are still up over the long term.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision is pending on whether the population has recovered enough to revoke the animals� threatened species status.

Grizzlies received federal protections in 1975 after getting wiped out across much of their historical range.

The Yellowstone population has slowly rebounded and the three-state region now hosts one of the largest concentrations of grizzly bears in the Lower 48 states. Their range covers 19,000 square miles centered on the high country of Yellowstone and surrounding national forests.

The bears temporarily lost protections in 2007 but got them back two years later after environmental groups successfully challenged the decision in federal court.

A judge ruled in part that the Fish and Wildlife Service had not fully considered the potential harm to grizzlies from the loss of a key food source, the nuts of high-elevation white bark pine trees, due to climate change.

Since then, government scientists have issued studies showing the bears have a varied diet and are not dependent on white bark pine. The matter is now in the hands of Fish and Wildlife Director Dan Ashe, said Chris Servheen, the agency�s grizzly recovery coordinator.

I went to a training session up in Yellowstone National Park back in May. When they got to the bear researcher he was roundly criticized by some of the more "green" attendees for saying there were a ton of grizzlies around.

It was funny to see the "greens" claiming that all of their efforts at restoring bears had failed. After all, if the bears are recovered, no one will send them money to save the bears.

Snake you hit the nail on the head. IF the bear numbers are up then they can't go crying to their donor's and the public for more money. They also wont get free air time for more greenie's programs on PBS. Follow the money. Everywhere I have been in the back country I see grizzlies. I was hunting 1 mile from the spot where the plot study guy got ate. There were several backpacker groups walking through ,with no guns, not wearing orange , no bear spray. Grizzly scat on the trails and lots of berry patches you go through on the trail. Did not hear of any of them becoming scat. Sure is time for hunting of grizzlies.

I know a few outfitters around here. They know how many bears are around and how they act around people. They're the best resource the Park Service and the USFWS has but they won't or more correctly CAN'T listen to them.

Would love to hunt one if they ever opened a season but with my luck I'd never draw a tag

I do some flying around the Dubois WY area. it doesn't take long to find a bear if you go north of here.

BTDT, when I was a kid, bears were like varmints. I shot this 7 foot Grizzly back when bears were considered a nuisance. Once between the eyes, no ricochet....

Nice shooting.

They aren't just on national forest or the parks either.

We've have them down around the houses and the surrounding blm and Indian lands as well.

We need a hunt badly. But I'm afraid they'll allow so few to be killed that it won't make much difference. The only real difference may be that dealing with problem bears wil be easier.

I went with a friend from Dubois Wyoming elk hunting over there and we seen a grizzly every day we went hunting. Seemed like they are thick as flees over there.

Several years go a couple of my friend and I went elk hunting n.w. of Dubois with an outfitter. One day a game warden and F.S. ranger came through and told everyone to be careful. Said they'd done a fly over a few days before and had seen a number of Grizzlies in our area.

We didn't see any but saw quite a few tracks and large piles of scat.

Also four years ago when elk hunting in the Fall River area in east Idaho close to the Wyoming line, a F.S. ranger came through camp and told us to be watchful and keep our camp clean. He said that an elk camp about a mile from us had been torn up badly by a Grizzly while the hunters were out seeking the Wily Wapiti. We put all our food in a bear proof, steel, locking food box at the far end of the camp.

Again, saw some huge tracks but no Grizzly. In both cases I was happy to have my trusty old .338 Win. Mag. with me.

Anyone who thinks there are not many Grizzlies around in parts of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, doesn't get around out in the mountains much.

L.W.

Spent 2 days guiding deer hunters last week in NW Wy.
Saw 10 Griz in 2 days...