Grizzly killed by train

A 15-year-old grizzly was hit and killed by a train Tuesday near the site of a corn spill last spring.

The Daily Inter Lake

A 15-year-old female grizzly bear was hit and killed by a train east of Essex on Tuesday night, and state officials have been busy wrangling bears south of Condon in recent days.

The grizzly was hit on a train trestle just after 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, grizzly bear management specialist Tim Manley confirmed.

The bear had been captured and radio collared about a month ago near the site of a corn spill on the tracks last spring. The bear was hit roughly two miles from that spill site.

Meanwhile, two young grizzly bears were caught last week in the Condon area after they got into unsecured garbage and dog food. They were relocated to a remote area along the Swan Range.

Since then, the female bear has returned to feed at a problematic restaurant garbage container just south of Condon, Manley said.

A culvert trap was set in an effort to recapture the bear, but the trap managed to capture two black bears instead. Those bears were caught Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We are working to get that Dumpster bear-proofed," Manley said. "There's a lot of bear activity there."

Manley and black bear management specialist Eric Wenum are continuing to get more bear-related calls than they do most years in the Flathead area.

On Wednesday, Wenum had 17 bear-related calls and trapped a black bear in a residential area on Big Mountain.

Manley and Wenum continue to urge residents in rural areas to store garbage and animal feed inside buildings, to bring in bird feeders and pick ripe fruit that might attract bears.