Biologists add grizzly bear near Bull River

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is continuing its grizzly bear augmentation program in northwest Montana, with the recent augmentation of a bear on the East Fork of the Bull River.

The two-year year old male was captured by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologists approximately 20 miles north of Whitefish and placed July 7.

The bear weighed 175 pounds and was fitted with ear tags and a radio collar prior to release. 

The collar allows periodic downloading to a laptop computer in an airplane to gather the previously location data.

In all, 14 bears have been added to the Cabinet Mountains population since 1990 (11 females and 3 males). Four female bears have left the target area (one was recaptured and released again) and four bears are known to be dead. 

One of the bears that is known to be dead survived for 16 years in the Cabinet Mountains and produced at least nine young. 

Those offspring are known to have produced at least eight young. 

“We expect to move another female to the Cabinet Mountains later this year,” said bear biologist Wayne Kasworm.

“Most of these animals have been identified as part of our hair snagging program and genetic analysis.

We began 2012 monitoring six grizzly bears. They included two subadult males in the Cabinet Mountains and an adult male, two subadult males, and a subadult female in the Yaak River. 

The adult male appears to have lost his radio collar soon after leaving the den in April. One of the subadult males in the Cabinets was the 2011 augmentation bear and the other was a management bear. The augmentation bear lost his collar in early June in Bear Creek and the collar was retrieved. The management male in the Cabinet Mountains and another subadult male in the Yaak River have not been located for more than two months and their fate is unknown. 

The subadult female is 2 years old and part of a family group that includes her mother and a sibling. She was recaptured during June of this year and her radio collar was replaced.

Mortality

There have been five known mortalities of grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak during 2011. 

The first was a badly decomposed bear carcass found near Rock Lake in mid-July. The sex or age of this bear was unknown, but believed to be a subadult. 

The second was an adult male killed in mid-September along the Idaho / Montana border in a case of mistaken identity. 

The third was a subadult male killed about 10 miles south of Libby during early November in a case of mistaken identity. 

The fourth was the management bear killed in self-defense in late November. The decomposed carcass of a grizzly bear was discovered during May in the Yaak River that probably died in 2011. Cause of death is under investigation by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.

There are at least two known deaths thus far in 2012 involving a female with a cub found in north Idaho during May. The dead adult grizzly was discovered on the morning of May 18 by a hiker from Bonners Ferry, Idaho. 

It was located in a clear-cut in Boundary County on Hall Mountain. Hall Mountain is located east of the Kootenai River valley and northwest of U.S. Highway 95. 

Though outside of the Cabinet-Yaak recovery area, the USFWS have radio collar data that suggests this area is linked to this recovery area. 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement agents and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) are investigating the fatal shooting and a reward of $10,000 is being offered for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible. 

Anyone with information about this incident should contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent in Spokane, Washington, at 509 928-6050; the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at 208 769-1414; or the Idaho Citizens Against Poaching Program at 1-800-632-5999. 

Callers can remain anonymous.