Grizzly bear confirmed near Grangeville recreation site

Idaho Fish and Game have confirmed a grizzly bear roaming south of Grangeville in west central Idaho.

Fish and Game officers over the weekend found fresh grizzly bear tracks in the Fish Creek Meadows winter recreation area about seven miles south of Grangeville, but biologists are uncertain if the bear is still in the area.

The department’s first evidence of a grizzly in the area came from game camera pictures taken last year in the same general vicinity. A hair sample sent for genetic testing matched a male grizzly bear radio collared two years earlier near the Idaho-British Columbia border, according to Fish and Game.

Biologists aren’t sure if the latest bear is the same bear that was in the area last spring.

If it is the same bear, it would be 4 years old, and it would have traveled more than 300 miles through Idaho and Montana.

More than 20 years ago, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to release an experimental population of grizzly bears in central Idaho, but then Gov. Dirk Kempthorne threatened a lawsuit to kibosh the proposal.

Since then, grizzly bear populations have been expanding from habitat in North Idaho and northwestern Montana. Eastern Idaho near Yellowstone National Park also has a known grizzly population.

At least two grizzly bears have been sighted in the Clearwater Region of central Idaho in the last two years and a grizzly was killed on national forest land near Kelly Creek in 2007 at a hunter’s black bear bait site.

Grizzly tracks were found last year in the Coeur d’Alene National Forest, and within the last two years, a grizzly was known to den on the Montana border near the St. Joe River south of St. Regis. Two years ago north of Coeur d’Alene near Silverwood, a grizzly bear that threatened livestock was captured and returned to Boundary County where it originated. A grizzly was shot and killed last year after killing livestock near Bonners Ferry.

Fish and Game earlier this year asked spring black bear hunters to be bear aware because grizzlies are becoming more prevalent in areas where traditionally they have not been found.

“We want to make sure that hunters in north-central Idaho are extra-vigilant while afield, both while traveling to their hunting spots, and in identifying their targets,” said Jon Rachael, state wildlife manager.

Grizzlies are federally protected, meaning it is illegal to kill a grizzly bear except in self-defense.

The Idaho Fish and Game website includes an identification video and quiz for hunters.