Second Cabinet grizzly killed

By JIM MANN/The Daily Inter Lake

Both grizzly bears that were moved to the Cabinet Mountains this year as part of a population augmentation program now are dead, and a Noxon man was cited for shooting one of them behind his house.

The other young female grizzly bear was killed last week after being hit by a train along the Clark Fork River.

On Oct. 20, Randall Sharp called the Sanders County Sheriff's Office to report that he had shot and killed a bear near his home. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Warden Sgt. Jon Obst responded the same day to the residence, where Sharp told him that he had shot the bear after it returned to get into his trash.

Sharp told Obst that he reported the shooting after he saw that the bear was fitted with a radio collar and appeared to be a grizzly. The bear was wearing a collar that was fitted when it was trapped in the Swan Valley on Aug. 8 and moved to the Cabinet Mountains.

"It's really unfortunate," said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Missoula. "We recognize that when we move bears this way, some of them will be lost."

But it does not negate the necessity of a project aimed at boosting the imperiled population of grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak recovery area, Servheen said, adding that it also does not signal that it's a futile effort.

Two young female bears moved to the Cabinets two years ago appear to have established home ranges. And it has been confirmed, through DNA analysis, that bears that were moved to the Cabinets in the early 1990s had offspring, which in turn, also had offspring.

Servheen is not sure why the latest transplants chose to move into lower-elevation areas.

"I don't know what they were up to," he said. "It was a good berry year … They just kind of showed up where there's people, down in the valley bottoms."

After an investigation, Obst cited Sharp on Oct. 28 for a single misdemeanor charge of hunting during a closed season and for shooting a grizzly bear when no hunting season is established for the species.

If found guilty, Sharp could be required to pay restitution for the bear.

Servheen said he will be report this year's tally of grizzly bear mortalities on Wednesday in Helena to a committee of land and wildlife managers involved in grizzly bear recovery. He said Monday he still is completing his report and that tally is not yet available.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com