A bear hunter in Idaho believed he had killed a black bear when it was actually a protected grizzly bear, but it wasn’t the hunter’s fault. It was Idaho Fish and Game’s fault.
The unidentified hunter sent Fish and Game recorded videos of the bear at the legal baiting site two days before the shooting. Hunting in an area where grizzly bears were not known to occur, the hunter was concerned that the bear was a grizzly and not a black bear.
“Unfortunately, Fish and Game staff misidentified the young bear as a black bear because it lacked some common characteristics of a grizzly bear, and shared that misidentification with the hunter,” Idaho Fish and Game stated in a news release.
“After shooting the bear and later identifying it at the scene as a grizzly bear, the hunter immediately contacted Fish and Game and fully cooperated with the investigation.
“Fish and Game regrets the mistake made by its staff, the undue stress the situation caused the hunter, and the loss of the grizzly bear. “Fish and Game is reviewing its staff’s involvement in the incident as a personnel matter.”
The incident occurred in Unit 6 of the Idaho Panhandle, an area not commonly used by grizzly bears.
On June 14, Fish and Game officials sent out a news release about the June 10 killing, stating that “grizzly bears are protected by state and federal laws, and bear hunters are responsible for proper identification.” of its objective”.
In this case, the hunter did the responsible thing by attempting to correctly identify the bear. Unfortunately, it was Fish and Game that got it wrong, apparently identifying the two subadult males shown in the hunter’s videos as black bears. The videos were published in the latest press release.
Not surprisingly, the hunter received no citation.
Stock photo of a grizzly bear courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
