One bear has been killed this year and another relocated, state says.
By Mike Koshmrl
One grizzly bear that has fed on cattle has been killed and another relocated from the Upper Green River drainage in the first couple of weeks of grazing livestock on the allotments there, cattlemen say.
Wolves have also been active in the area and feeding on livestock, said Albert Sommers, a rancher who heads the Green River Valley Cattlemen’s Association and is representative for Wyoming’s House District 20.
“We probably started going into our pasture system [with cattle] about the 20th of June,” Sommers said Friday. A neighbor who grazes cattle along the Green River bottom had a “bear kill and a wolf kill before we even got there.
“And I think between then and now — this is a guess — there’s been about six to eight bear kills and two wolf kills on us,” Sommers said.
The 323-square-mile public lands rangeland complex in the Upper Green, located about 40 miles east of Jackson, is the largest grazing allotment in the U.S. Forest Service system. In places it spans the entire Bridger-Teton National Forest from north to south.
The region is also the most concentrated portion of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem for grizzly bear conflict. The allotments are the site of about 40 bear-livestock conflicts a year, according to Forest Service documents.
When they kill livestock, bears are typically relocated from the Upper Green or, if they’ve got a bad record, sometimes removed from the population.
Ten grizzly bears have been killed by wildlife managers since 2012 for depredations in the rangeland.
A limit set by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allows for no more than 11 grizzly bears to be killed over any three-year period. Last year the limit, called “incidental take,” was reset by Fish and Wildlife, which is managing grizzly bears while they’re being protected by the Endangered Species Act.
The latest grizzly mortality in the Upper Green occurred June 26, when an adult male with a history of cattle depredation was killed, according to Dan Thompson, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s large carnivore supervisor.
Game and Fish relocated a young boar grizzly from the Upper Green the next day, according to a news release from the state agency. The bear was relocated to near Five Mile Creek, about 5 miles east of Yellowstone National Park in the North Fork of the Shoshone River drainage.
The subadult grizzly’s mother was also in the area at the time, Sommers said.
“They never caught her,” he said. “They said it was odd that he was still with his mother.”
The removal and relocation didn’t bring depredations on the rangeland to a halt.
“There’s been kills since then,” Sommers said.
“They’ve got another bear that they collared a year ago and they found his radio signal in close proximity to a kill, so they’re pretty sure he’s killing,” he said Friday.
Another suspected wolf-kill was detected Thursday on Pinon Ridge, Sommers said.
Calves have accounted for the majority of the livestock depredations tallied by the Green River Valley Cattlemen’s Association this year, Sommers said. One or two yearling cattle have also been killed, he said.
Bridger-Teton National Forest permits allow about 7,500 sheep and 22,500 cattle to graze public land in the Upper Green. An environmental planning document from the Forest Service that could allow grazing in the area to continue for years to come may soon be released to the public.
“I know that they’re hoping to have this out by the end of the summer,” Sommers said.