grizzly bears

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Yellowstone manages people instead of grizzlies during bear jams

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Yellowstone visitors would pay an additional $41 to ensure seeing roadside grizzlies, a study shows, and the attraction creates 155 jobs and more than $10 million a year for the regional economy. The $41 visitors would pay is on top of the $25-per-vehicle entrance fee. If Yellowstone no longer allowed grizzly bears to use roadside habitat — and instead chased, moved or killed them — the regional economy would lose more than $10 million a year and 155 jobs according to the paper “The economics of roadside bear viewing.” Continue Reading →

Filed under: Grand Teton, News, Research, Science & Nature, Wildlife, Yellowstone, grizzly bears, kerry gunther

Researchers trapping grizzly bears in southwest Montana

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As part of ongoing efforts required under the Endangered Species Act to monitor the population of grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area, the U.S. Geological Survey will be trapping grizzly bears on private land in southwest Montana. Scientific trapping operations will be conducted on private land in the southern Madison Mountains, Montana, according to a statement released by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. The statement did not detail specific areas where trapping will take place. Continue Reading →

Filed under: News, Wildlife, bears, grizzly bears, Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, trapping

Early Yellowstone visitors delayed by Sylvan Pass avalanche control

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A great blue heron searchers for food near Trout Creek in Yellowstone National Park.

Early visitors to Yellowstone National Park may sometimes wish they could stay a little longer. And some of the first people touring the park by auto this year got their wish Friday, as a closure of Sylvan Pass stopped traffic on the park's East Entrance road for a few hours. Park officials temporarily closed the 1.5-mile stretch of road between the East Gate and Fishing Bridge to allow for avalanche mitigation. Continue Reading →

Filed under: News, Yellowstone, east gate, great blue heron, grizzly bears, sylvan pass

Bears in Grand Teton are active as spring weather arrives

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Officials in Grand Teton National Park report that grizzly bears are active and out of hibernation with the arrival of spring weather.

Bears are out of hibernation and active again in Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. Park staff received reports of a group of bears seen recently near the Blacktail Butte which lies just east of the park’s Moose headquarters campus. Long-term data indicates that 50 percent of adult male bears are out of their winter dens by mid-March each year. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Grand Teton, News, Wildlife, bears, grizzly bears, hibernation, safety

Grizzly managers recommend ending Yellowstone area bears’ protected status

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Wildlife officials have proposed ending federal protections for Yellowstone area grizzly bears.

A team of grizzly bear biologists and managers meeting in Montana this week voted unanimously to recommend removing greater Yellowstone area grizzlies from the federally administered list of threatened and endangered species. The groups' overwhelming recommendation is a strong signal of approval to managers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of their plans to end grizzlies' protected status. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Wildlife, endangered species, grizzly bears, interagency grizzly bear committee, Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team

Interagency grizzly bear management team meets Dec. 10-11 in Missoula

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A few grizzly bears have been spotted emerging from hibernation in Yellowstone National Park.

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC), the multi-agency committee responsible for grizzly bear recovery in the continental United States and adjacent Canadian Provinces will be holding their annual winter meeting in Missoula, Montana from December 10, 2013 – December 11, 2013. The meeting will take place at the Holiday Inn Downtown, located at 200 S Pattee St. The sessions on both days will begin at 8:00 AM. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Wildlife, grizzly bears, interagency grizzly bear committee, Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, missoula, public meetings

Groups work to reduce grizzly bear conflicts around Jackson

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Federal, state and nonprofit organizations are working together this month to reduce conflicts between grizzly bears and people in Jackson, Wyo. and the surrounding area. Through educational presentations and distribution of bear deterrent spray to hunters, the groups hope to avoid encounters that might result in injury or death to either people or bears. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Wildlife, bear spray, bison, elk, greater yellowstone coalition, grizzly bears, hunting, national elk refuge

Yellowstone area grizzly bears move closer to removal from threatened list

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A few grizzly bears have been spotted emerging from hibernation in Yellowstone National Park.

Grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area took a step closer to losing some protections as a threatened species after a group of researchers last week reported positive trends in the recovering population. Wildlife managers from state, federal and tribal agencies met in Bozeman, Mont. to report on bear-human conflicts and hear details of continuing recovery efforts from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Wildlife, endangered species, grizzly bears, Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, whitebark pine

Grizzly bears find fall feast in well-traveled moths

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A raven waits nearby as a grizzly bear digs among rocks on a talus slope while searching for moths to eat.

As aspen leaves turn the gold of fall, grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area endure the final mania of their annual feeding frenzy before winter’s hibernation. The omnivorous bears compulsively pack on the pounds with berries, fish, carrion, whitebark pine seeds and a food unique to the Rocky Mountains—thousands of army cutworm moths. Also known as miller moths, they are the adult form of an agricultural pest, the army cutworm, which migrates to mountain fields in early summer to feed on alpine flowers’ nectar. During the past 30 years, a handful of researchers have established the importance of moths as a food source for bears. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Research, Science & Nature, Wildlife, army cutworm, army cutworm moth, grizzly bears, Hillary Robison, Kenny Gasch