Page 25 - Wyoming's Grizzly Harvest - The Story the State Wants to Bury with the Bears

Wyoming’s Grizzly Harvest “A Nice Black Bear” III T hose who may be concerned about the long term viability of the grizzly bear under Wyoming’s charge may take some solace from WGFD’s pledge that “Female grizzly bears with dependent young (cubs of the year, yearlings, 2-year olds) will be protected from hunter harvest.” That is until Luke Ellsbury comes back to mind. If a WGFD “bear management specialist” can’t distinguish between a grizzly and a black bear, there is no reason to believe that he or other hunters will have any clue if the trophy in their sights is a male, a female, an impregnated female in the fall, or a female with cubs of the year (COY) that they didn’t realize had COY because the cubs were concealed when they shot. This proposed prohibition on killing “females with dependent young ” would not save them in a typical field scenario. One of Servheen’s foot soldiers, Mark Haroldson, and Chuck Schwartz, the former IGBST leader, were of the opinion that when Yellowstone may have had fewer than 200 grizzlies, “reducing adult female 25