Yellowstone's improved grizzly bear population means more conflicts with people

ISLAND PARK -- This is where an exposed sagebrush sea rolls into the cover of evergreen needles. Grizzly bears use both. Where fish flourish in headwaters and game grows wild. Grizzly bears eat both. Where people live, work, play and natural resources thrive, struggle, maintain. Grizzly bears experience all of it.

This is the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and whatever you’re coming here to do this summer, you’re going to have to change how you do it.

Grizzly bears are back on the landscape.

THE GRIZZLY BEAR COUNT

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the largest relatively undeveloped ecosystems on Earth. At more than 34,000 square miles, it’s nearly the size of Maine. It includes Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park plus other portions of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

There were fewer than 200 grizzlies in the ecosystem when the bears were listed as “threatened” on the Endangered Species List in 1975. Forty-four years later, there are more than 700.

Read more: https://www.idahostatesman.com/outdoors/hunting/article228818344.html