Young grizzly moved to Cabinet Mountains

State wildlife officials successfully relocated and released a grizzly bear in the Cabinet Mountains on Monday, according to a press release from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

As part of a multi-agency effort to augment the struggling population of grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, the state agency periodically relocates bears to the region.

The 3 1/2-year-old male bruin had no history of conflict and was captured on the South Fork of the Flathead River. It was released near Spar Lake, about 12 miles south of Troy in the Kootenai National Forest.

“All grizzly bears relocated to the Cabinets are monitored with a radio collar until their collars drop off,” the press release stated. “The collars utilize the global positioning system to gather locations every few hours in order to follow the bear’s movements.”

While grizzly populations in the recovery areas near Glacier and Yellowstone national parks have rebounded significantly since the species’ 1975 listing under the Endangered Species Act, the recovery in the Cabinet-Yaak has been slow to take hold.

As of last year, the population contained only about 5 percent of the total number of grizzlies in the region spanning Glacier and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and was growing at about half the rate.