Wildlife officials trap, move grizzlies after problems near Meeteetse and Thermopolis

Wildlife officials recently trapped and relocated a pair of grizzly bears after they ran into trouble outside Meeteetse and Thermopolis.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department announced Tuesday that an adult male bear that was getting into livestock feed near Meeteetse was trapped Friday and taken to the Boone Creek drainage in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest about 35 miles north of Alta.

The bear’s location wasn’t a backcountry cabin in the wilderness, it was just outside of Meeteetse, said Dan Thompson, Game and Fish's statewide supervisor of the large carnivore management section in Lander.

“Bears in close proximity to a residence are not taken lightly,” Thompson said in a Wednesday email.

On Sunday, a sub-adult male grizzly bear was captured for frequenting developed areas near Thermopolis. It was relocated to the Bailey Creek drainage in Bridger Teton National Forest, about 15 miles northwest of Moran.

Wildlife officials say bears can become a problem if they become habituated to human or livestock food.

Any time a bear is acquiring some type of food reward Game and Fish personnel are going to respond immediately in order to resolve the situation in an expedient manner, Thompson said.

(The Associated Press and Cody News Company's Gib Mathers contributed to this report.)

grizzly, Wyoming Game and Fish