500-pound griz moved away from restaurant

By JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake

State grizzly bear management specialist Tim Manley got early work for the year, capturing a 500-pound grizzly bear that was getting into a restaurant garbage container near Stryker this week.

The 6- to 8-year-old male bear was captured Tuesday behind the Point of Rocks Restaurant on U.S. 93 and was released Thursday in the North Fork Flathead drainage. Manley is working with the restaurant owner to install a bear-resistant trash container.

Manley said grizzly bears have been coming out of their dens for the last three weeks, based on tracks observed during monitoring flights. Because of the late spring mountain snowpack, bears have few options other than dropping to lower elevations to search for food.

Manley has set a trap in the Star Meadow area, where another grizzly bear has been frequenting houses.

Jim Williams, regional wildlife manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, advises black bear hunters to postpone hunting plans until warmer weather arrives, because most of the bears that out of their dens now are grizzly bears.

A Whitefish hunter was cited for shooting a grizzly bear in the North Fork near the Camas Bridge last weekend.

The hunter told wardens he thought it was a black bear.