Grizzly bear killed

A Grizzly bear that hung around the Garwood area last summer before being transported to Boundary County was killed over the weekend after killing livestock north of Bonners Ferry.

Craig Walker of Idaho Fish and Game said the bear was caught near a residence not far from Copeland, after Fish and Game and Wildlife Services employees set a trap for the animal.

The bear had killed several sheep, Walker said.

“It killed I think half a dozen sheep during last week,” Walker said.

The young grizzly bear, which weighed around 275 pounds when it was transported last summer, Walker said, was euthanized to prevent it from returning to the area and killing more livestock.

The three-year old male grizzly was captured near Garwood in September after property owners said it was trying top get into chicken coops. It was fitted with a tracking collar and released in the Cabinet Mountains near the Montana border, but it didn’t stay there.

“It mosied itself down to the orchards pretty quickly after we moved it,” wildlife biologist Laura Wolf said last October.

The bear hung around the Kootenai River near Bonners Ferry, feeding off the nearby orchards, and at one time last fall was shown to be on an island in the river eating chokecherries and elderberries.

Grizzly bears in northern Boundary County are not rare occurrences, Fish and Game said. There are believed to be 70-80 grizzly bears living in the adjacent Selkirk Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone, which covers parts of Idaho, Washington and British Columbia. Grizzly bear conflicts with livestock in the area are relatively uncommon. The last reported incident in Idaho occurred over five years ago.

The bears in northern Idaho are federally protected under the Endangered Species Act and management actions are therefore done in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.