Clark landfill grizzly grabbed

Posted 5/25/10

“That's the kind of thing bears love is a landfill,” Morris said.

The landfill attendant, Susan Tantlinger, spotted the grizzly's tracks and notified the Wyoming Game and Fish Department immediately, Morris said.

But this grizzly …

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Clark landfill grizzly grabbed

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A grizzly bear was captured last week in the Clark landfill after dining on dead livestock for a week.The landfill bear was a young female that may have been recently separated from her mother, speculated Sandie Morris, Park County Landfill office manager.Landfill carcasses are easy pickings for a young grizzly, Morris said.

“That's the kind of thing bears love is a landfill,” Morris said.

The landfill attendant, Susan Tantlinger, spotted the grizzly's tracks and notified the Wyoming Game and Fish Department immediately, Morris said.

But this grizzly was smarter than the average bear.

The Clark landfill is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the griz figured that out.

She would arrive at night after closing, dine, camp and decamp in the morning prior to landfill opening. The grizzly was spotted only once, on a distant ridge, Morris said.

Sly as a fox, she also ducked the traps set by Game and Fish for a time, but ...

“It took them a week, but they got her,” Morris said.

“Game and Fish is the best. They worked with us. They handled it very well,” Morris added.

“A bear that age and sex probably did not pose a danger,” said Mark Bruscino, Game and Fish bear management program supervisor.

Eating dead cows is not food conditioning, but if the young grizzly had happened upon people food, she could have become conditioned to humans and that could lead to human-bear conflict in Clark, Bruscino said.

“Experience has taught us that a bear in that area is not going to do well,” Bruscino said.

Every other year or so, a grizzly winds up landfill diving in Clark, Morris said.

“We're going to have grizzly bears,” Morris said.

The bear was captured May 19 and released the same day in the Falls River drainage, about 17 miles west of the South Gate of Yellowstone National Park with no harm to humans.

“I consider this a successful bear encounter,” Morris said.

The landfill grizzly was one of two bears recently relocated. Another grizzly was transplanted southwest of here after killing a cow calf.

The young male grizzly that killed a calf on private land near Cody was captured May 18 and released the same day in the Sheffield Creek drainage of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, Bruscino said.

“That area is free of livestock, Bruscino said.

It is not unusual to spot bears in the lower elevations this time of year, especially with the recent rain and snow higher-up. Bears will return to the elevated country once the snow recedes and it greens-up, Bruscino said.

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