Grizzly bear trapped and relocated

Wyoming Game and Fish personnel captured and relocated a sub-adult, female grizzly bear Friday on a Forest Service grazing allotment north of Pinedale. The bear was a “non-target capture” while officers were attempting to mitigate cattle depredation in the area.

The bear was relocated to the Fall River drainage, about 25 miles northwest of Moran Junction.

There is a good deal of policy behind decisions to relocate grizzlies.

According to Wyoming Game and Fish, “bears that are considered a threat to human safety are not relocated. Grizzly bear relocation is a management tool afforded to large carnivore biologists to minimize conflicts between humans and grizzly bears and is critical to the management of the population. When other options are exhausted or unattainable, Game and Fish will attempt to capture the bear. Once the animal is captured, all circumstances are taken into account when determining if the individual should be relocated or removed from the population.

“If relocation is warranted, the selection of a relocation site is determined taking into consideration the age, sex, and type of conflict the bear was involved in as well as potential human activity in the vicinity of the relocation site.”

Bears that are determined to be a threat to humans are not released back into the wild.

In the case of the Friday capture, the relocation site was selected because of the lack of human activity in the area.