A grizzly bear followed its nose to a bait site in the Coeur d\u2019Alene Mountains earlier this month, where it was captured by a black bear hunter\u2019s game camera.<\/p>\n
The hunter reported the sighting near Skookum Saddle to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and shared the game camera photos.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks to be a healthy, adult grizzly bear out there doing normal bear things,\u201d said Morgan Pfander, Idaho Fish and Game\u2019s regional grizzly bear biologist.<\/p>\n
The hunter has been directed to remove the bait in accordance with state regulations, Pfander said. The agency is also trying to get a DNA sample from the bear to learn something about it.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a long tradition of grizzlies turning up in the mountain range east of Coeur d\u2019Alene, an area where biologists don\u2019t know of any resident grizzlies.<\/p>\n
North Idaho\u2019s grizzlies generally belong to populations centered in the Cabinet and Selkirk mountains in Bonner and Boundary counties. But the federally protected bruins are known to take long walkabouts, which is how they end up in relatively unusual places.<\/p>\n
The Coeur d\u2019Alenes aren\u2019t far from the Cabinets \u2013 they\u2019re just across the Clark Fork River. Pfander said the most recent sighting is the third that Fish and Game has received for the range since spring. In recent years, a grizzly has been reported in the Wolf Lodge area.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t view this month\u2019s sighting as a surprise. She would categorize it as \u201cinfrequent,\u201d but said it\u2019s something people should expect as populations in the Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak ecosystems grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re adding a couple bears each year,\u201d Pfander said. \u201cWe are going to see bears over time in places where we aren\u2019t used to seeing grizzly bears.\u201d<\/p>\n
In late August, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife got reports of at least one grizzly bear west of the Pend Oreille River near Cusick. Annemarie Prince, the district biologist for the area, said it was unclear from photos the agency got if it was one or two bears.<\/p>\n
Either way, the bear seemed to move on after a short time and hasn\u2019t been heard from since.<\/p>\n
There are grizzlies in the Washington portion of the Selkirks, which lie east of the Pend Oreille River. Reports of them on the west side of the river are somewhat unusual, but it happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that bears occasionally cross the river,\u201d Prince said.<\/p>\n
One such river crosser was a bear that was relocated after raiding a chicken coop in the Onion Creek area near Colville in 2023. It was collared and moved into the Selkirks.<\/p>\n
The following spring, it was spotted raiding another chicken coop near Chewelah.<\/p>\n
Bear activity tends to spike in spring and fall \u2013 the time bears are leaving the den and the time they\u2019re preparing to enter the den.<\/p>\n
In the fall, they\u2019re in hyperphagia, eager to pack on the weight before hibernation. That sometimes means conflict with people.<\/p>\n
This year, Pfander said a poor berry crop has resulted in an uptick in black and grizzly bears being reported getting into garbage or other unsecured attractants in North Idaho.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever natural foods are less abundant, bears start getting a little bolder,\u201d Pfander said. \u201cThey\u2019ll end up looking for food closer to humans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A grizzly bear followed its nose to a bait site in the Coeur d\u2019Alene Mountains earlier this month,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-860791","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\/860791","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=860791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}