Grizzly Bear Trapping Season Begins at Yellowstone National Park

Grizzly bears in parts of Yellowstone National Park will be trapped, sedated and tagged as part of an annual research operation that began Monday and is scheduled to continue through mid July.

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, a federal research group of biologists and scientists, will use road-killed deer and elk to lure the grizzlies into traps, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.

The traps appear to be large steel compartments with a trap door that will close once a bear enters.

Once captured, the bears will be sedated by the study team, who will then take tissue samples and measurements before fitting the grizzlies with radio collars to collect additional data once the bears wake up.

The trap zones are to be in several remote areas of Yellowstone, far from established hiking trails or backcountry campsites. Warning signs will be posted around the perimeter of the trap zones to alert any humans in the area.

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team was established in 1973 and is responsible for long-term monitoring and research efforts on grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The team was formed by the Department of the Interior as the product of a controversy surrounding the closure of open-pit garbage dumps within Yellowstone National Park during 1968-1972. For decades, large numbers of grizzly bears fed at these dumps and after the closure of this food source, the rate of grizzly bear deaths increased, the bear study team reported.

Grizzly bears are usually solitary predators and tend to shy away from humans, but there have been instances of grizzlies attacking humans.

In 2010, a female grizzly bear and three cubs attacked three separate tents in an area of Yellowstone in Montana, leaving one camper dead and two other injured, according to National Geographic. The attack was unprovoked and it is unknown why the bear attacked.

Yellowstone National Park is located primarily in Wyoming, but parts of the park do extend into neighboring Montana and Idaho. There are thought to be about 600 grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

At least five grizzlies have been killed in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem this year, according to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, compared to 56 last year. The grizzly study team reports that 80 percent of grizzly bear deaths are human-caused.