In this May 2009 photo, a grizzly bear is seen in Yellowstone National Park near Mammoth, Wyoming.
A black-bear hunter reportedly killed a large grizzly bear in the hills 5 miles northeast of Missoula on May 16, but federal wildlife officials have released few details about the incident.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in conjunction with its partners at Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, is actively investigating the self-reported killing of a grizzly bear by a black bear hunter in the Johnson Creek drainage near Bonner,” FWS spokesman Ryan Moehring wrote in a press release on Tuesday.
“This is an active, ongoing investigation and the Service will share more information with the public when the circumstances of the case permit.”
“That’s right behind my house,” said Lennox, who’s lived along the Blackfoot River a mile north of Bonner for 30 years. “And this spring bear hunt is crazy anyway. Lots of hunters can’t tell difference between bears. This could be female with cubs, in which case they just killed two, three or four bears. This was almost two weeks ago, and the Fish and Wildlife Service never came by to let me know what’s going on. It’s like it’s some kind of big secret. That’s weird as hell.”
“Grizzly bears are a listed species (protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act), so there’s no surprise there’s federal involvement in a grizzly shooting,” Moehring said. “Whenever there’s been an incident like this, the Fish and Wildlife Service has an active role to play.”
Montana’s spring black-bear hunting season started on April 15 and closes in the Missoula area on June 15. Hunters must pass a test certifying they can tell the difference between black and grizzly bears in order to purchase a hunting license.
About 1,000 grizzly bears live in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem that extends from the Rattlesnake Wilderness north of Missoula to the northern border of Glacier National Park. While wildlife researchers have occasionally tracked grizzlies traveling around the fringe of the Missoula Valley, the big bears have rarely been sighted south of the Mission Mountains or Bob Marshall wilderness areas.
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on The Extinction Chronicles.
I’m strongly against hunting — always have been. If it was indeed a protected species the guy needs to pay dearly and be dealt with, IMHO an eye for an eye is the perfect solution.
I feel for the guy who has his dream wilderness parcel and house and has to put up with wacko predator hunters every year.
I do not believe for a second that a killer (hunter) of bears cannot tell the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear. I think this killer like a lot of them these days are killing the animals, they are not supposed to, illegally and reporting them as mistakes. They know they can get away with it. They probably share their stories of poaching and reporting them as mistakes and laugh at animal lovers.