A large adult male grizzly bear was struck and killed by a semi-truck on Highway 83 near Condon in the early morning hours of Sept. 6, state wildlife officials announced Thursday.
The driver reported the collision to 911 at 6:15 a.m. and Fish, Wildlife and Parks Warden Bill Koppen investigated the accident.
Records show that the grizzly bear was previously captured for research purposes in 2006, 2008 and 2009, but was not wearing a radio collar at the time of death, according to a press release from FWP.
The 12-year-old bear was never captured for management purposes and was not known to have been involved in any documented bear-human conflicts, officials said.
The incident marks the first documented automobile mortality of a grizzly bear in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) during 2016. Between 2004 and 2015, automobile collisions accounted for 0 to 6 documented mortalities annually, with an average of 1.7 per year.
Last year, wildlife officials documented 22 grizzly bear deaths in the NCDE, four of which were attributed to automobile collisions, according to an annual monitoring report compiled by FWP.