On Sunday, officers with the Wyoming Sport and Fish Division have been known as to some non-public land close to Ten Sleep in Washakie County to research a case of livestock predation. They decided {that a} grizzly bear had been roaming round a ranch within the space for per week, ultimately predating on a cow and injuring it. The rancher whose property and livestock have been impacted stays nameless to the general public.
This wouldn’t have been big information in different elements of Wyoming, notably within the western area the place the 1,000-plus grizzlies dispersing from Yellowstone Nationwide Park run into conflict with livestock producers, hunters, and hikers on a regular basis. However in Ten Sleep, nestled within the southwestern foothills of the Bighorn Mountains the place grizzly bears haven’t lived for over a century, it got here as a shock.
The subadult male grizzly that attacked the cow had traveled some 80 miles east of the “Demographic Monitoring Space,” WGFD writes in a press release — what they outline as “the realm thought of biologically and socially appropriate for grizzly bears.”
After consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, WGFD officers euthanized the bear as a consequence of its predation on the cow and the way regularly it was wandering close to the ranch.
The place precisely this grizzly got here from stays a thriller. Excessive concentrations of grizzlies exist in and round Yellowstone Nationwide Park in northwestern Wyoming and Glacier Nationwide Park in northwestern Montana. (The opposite 4 grizzly recovery zones are additional west, in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.) However different situations of grizzlies dispersing throughout entire basins just isn’t unparalleled. In July 2023, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks was stunned to find a grizzly had shown up in the Pryor Mountains south of Billings. A migration between the Pryors and the Beartooth Mountains to the west, that are a part of the Higher Yellowstone Ecosystem, would cowl 30 miles and cross no less than three state highways. A grizzly touring from the southern GYE to Ten Sleep would cowl greater than twice that distance.
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However grizzlies are additionally able to overlaying 20 to 40 miles in a day, FWP writes. Which means they may make it to the Bighorns from the southern GYE in lower than three days if motivated. Seeing as how the Bighorns provide little or no in the way in which of excellent grizzly habitat, WGFD director Brian Nesvik says there shouldn’t be issues a few inhabitants establishing there.
“Wyoming’s grizzly bear inhabitants is managed and monitored the place appropriate habitat exists as designated by the USFWS and knowledgeable by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Examine Workforce,” Nesvik says within the press launch. “The Bighorn Mountain Vary just isn’t appropriate habitat and the division just isn’t involved in permitting grizzly bears to occupy this space. Their growth into unsuitable habitat results in elevated battle potential between bears and people, which impedes the success of grizzly bear conservation.”
Grizzly bears in Wyoming are a federally protected species and are listed as “threatened.” The 2021 population count for the GYE, a big majority of which is in Wyoming, was 1,069 bears.
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