Reporter’s Notes

Griz relocated

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and in accordance with federal guidelines, trapped and relocated one adult grizzly bear last Friday.

The four-year-old female bear was trapped west of Cody at a private residence in the South Fork Shoshone River valley. She was relocated the same day to an area just north of the Jedediah Smith Wilderness boundary in the Calf Creek drainage on the Targhee National Forest. The release site is located within currently occupied grizzly bear habitat and the Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone.

The bear had obtained livestock grain from an open-sided shed as a food reward.

Grizzly bear relocation is a management tool afforded bear management officers to address conflicts between humans and grizzlies. The decision to relocate and the selection of a relocation site is made in close consultation with the FWS and the U.S. Forest Service to minimize the chance of future conflicts and maximize the survival potential of the relocated grizzlies. Bears are relocated in accordance with federal laws, regulations, and policy.

Bears can become a nuisance after they have obtained food rewards. WG&F continues to stress the importance of keeping all attractants (food items, horse feeds, bird seed and others) unavailable to bears.

Reducing attractants reduces human-bear conflicts.

Range

The Wyoming Agricultural Statistics Service reported at week’s end that spotty showers with mild temps helped maintain pasture and range feed supplies. Seven percent was rated good, one point better than last week and 25 percent was poor, down one point from last week. Forty percent remained in very poor condition. Most livestock were home off BLM land and cattle producers believe fall pastures will run out more rapidly than normal this year.

Temps

Temperatures during the week ending Sept. 29 averaged from 5.1 degrees below normal in Newcastle to 2.5 degrees above normal in Big Piney. The high temperature was 81 in Torrington while the low was 20 in Redbird. Most reporting stations recorded under a tenth of an inch of precipitation for the week.

Big Piney’s year-to-date precipitation stands at 4.57 inches, which is 1.60 inches below normal.