August 27, 2009, 2:34 pm
Two grizzlies at Montana's Glacier National Park were killed by park officials last week — one, unfortunately, unintentionally.
Glacier National Park issued a press release today clarifying that the death of a male grizzly bear cub on Aug. 17 was attributed to a tranquilizer dart injection it received at the time its 17-year-old mother was being "humanely dispatched" (National Park-speak for "killed") for becoming too habituated to humans. A second cub, a female, was captured and will be transferred to the Bronx Zoo. Shown below is park officials transferring the cub to a larger trap.
The mother and yearling cubs had repeatedly been seen this summer hanging around the backcountry campground at Oldman Lake in the park's Two Medicine region, and their removal came after two separate incidents in which they approached humans "in a non-defensive situation," said the Park Service.
The mother bear had a number of run-ins with humans dating back to 2004, and the Park Service repeatedly used noise, Karelian Bear Dogs and other non-lethal methods to keep her away from humans. The park service began tracking her about five days before she was killed.
Anyone who's hiked in Glacier is made well-aware by park officials of the risks of recreating in grizzly country. The few times I've hiked there — including in the bear-intensive Many Glacier region — I've used "bear bells" to warn of my presence and carried a canister of bear spray. I would love to have seen a grizz, albeit from a very safe distance. According to park official Wade Muehlhof, the area near Oldman Lake (shown below) was closed sporadically this summer but is now open.
