KALISPELL — Wildlife officials euthanized a grizzly bear that returned to a residential area in northwestern Montana searching for food just weeks after being relocated away from homes, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks said.
The agency received multiple reports that the 235-pound male grizzly bear was eating from bird feeders, eating garbage and grazing on residential lawns in the Barnaby Lake area near Fortine, which is southeast of Eureka. People were unable to frighten the bear into leaving.
The 3-year-old bear was captured on May 25 and euthanized after consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.
The bear was one of three that had been captured near Bigfork on May 7 for getting into residential food attractants and grazing on lawns starting in mid-April. At that time, it was relocated to a remote forest near the Canadian border.