State wildlife officials have moved a sow grizzly bear and a yearling cub after the bruins got into garbage cans in the Swan Range foothills.
The 8-year-old female was captured on private land on April 14. Remote cameras detected that the bear had been accompanied by a yearling.
Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials held the sow in a family trap and the 70-pound female yearling was captured two days later.
Animal conflict specialist Erik Wenum says the sow, which hadn’t been captured before, was fitted with a GPS collar and the bears were released in the mountains east of Kalispell.
Tim Manley, grizzly bear management specialist, asks residents in bear country to secure bird feeders, garbage and other food sources that might attract bears. He says a radio telemetry flight on April 17 showed that half of the collared grizzly bears that he monitors are out of their dens.
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