poaching of Wolf 1478F<\/a>. She was a member of Yellowstone National Park\u2019s famous Junction Butte pack.<\/p>\nWolf 1478F is thought to have been killed on or around Christmas Day in Montana\u2019s Wolf Hunt Area 313, north of Yellowstone.<\/p>\n
Although that\u2019s a legal hunting zone, the 3-wolf season quota for that area had already been met when she was shot. That made the killing of 1478F an illegal poaching, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.<\/p>\n
Details Scarce On Grizzly Shooting<\/p>\n
Because the grizzly killing is still under investigations, details remain scarce.<\/p>\n
The case is being jointly investigated by Fish and Game and FWS. The federal agency has jurisdiction over alleged illegal grizzly killings, because grizzlies in the Lower 48 remain under federal endangered species protection.<\/p>\n
The bear had a radio tracking collar, which began emitting a \u201cmortality signal\u201d on Oct. 28, according to FWS.<\/p>\n
\u201cService staff and IDFG (Fish and Game)\u00a0officers investigated and determined the grizzly was shot in a manner indicating it was not a threat to the shooter,\u201d according to the agencies.<\/p>\n
Other details, such as whether the female grizzly was thought to have cubs with her when she was shot, were unavailable.<\/p>\n
Cabinet-Yaak Bears Can\u2019t Stand The Loss<\/p>\n
The killing of an adult female Cabinet-Yaak grizzlies is especially egregious, because the tiny subpopulation can\u2019t stand the loss, said Andrea Zaccardi, Center\u00a0for Biological Diversity carnivore conservation program legal director.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven the loss of just one female grizzly bear in that population has the potential to have significant impacts on that population, because it\u2019s so small,\u201d she told Cowboy State Daily.<\/p>\n
The Cabinet-Yaak bears are essentially cut off from Montana\u2019s Northern Continental Divide grizzlies, thought to number about 1,000 bears, Zaccardi said.<\/p>\n
To the north, in Canada, \u201cclear-cutting\u201d timber operations discourage more grizzlies coming from that direction, she said.<\/p>\n
To protect the bears, the Center\u00a0for\u00a0Biological Diversity has sued to stop Forest Service timber sales on the Idaho side, she said.<\/p>\n
The \u201crecovery plan\u201d target number for the Cabinet-Yaak is 100 grizzlies, but there are, at most, 60 bears there, according to the center\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Adult Females Are Vital<\/p>\n
Prominent grizzly researcher Frank van Manen said the Cabinet-Yaak grizzlies have been boosted over the years by bears transplanted from elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a much smaller population. It has been dependent upon augmenting it with bears from the Northern Continental Divide population,\u201d he told Cowboy State Daily.<\/p>\n
The loss of female grizzles can set a population back, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFemales are the reproductive engines of any wildlife population, and especially in grizzly bears. Those mature females are critical to any population,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Grizzlies in Wyoming and the rest of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) are doing well in that regard, he added.<\/p>\n
For a grizzly population to do well, there should be at least a 91% survival rate of females of breeding age or at least \u201cindependent age\u201d, or roughly two years old, he said.<\/p>\n
In the GYE, the survival rate of adult females is \u201c95% in any typical year,\u201d van Manen said.<\/p>\n
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The illegal killing of a female grizzly from what bear advocates say is a tiny, imperiled subpopulation has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-428508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}