Governor Gregoire declares May 20-26, 2012 “Bear Awareness Week” Special resources celebrate state’s grizzly and black bears and educate the public on how to co-exist Black bears and grizzlies are an important part of our state’s natural heritage. Today, Washington has one of the healthiest black bear populations in the U.S.  It is also one [...]

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee approved a DNA hair snare study within the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear ecosystem to be conducted over the next few years. This study will parallel a similar study that was conducted within the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem several years ago. This study will be conducted over the entire Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, which [...]

A fascinating article about a female bear in Montana estimated to have traveled over 1,200 miles on land and water June 2010 to September 2011. Why this bear is so unusual is that female grizzly bears are known to cover a 50 to 300 square miles of habitat, while males require 200 to 500 square [...]

While female grizzly bears with young have always been considered to be the more dangerous sex, a recent study by bear biologist Stephen Herrero suggests that the opposite may be true for black bears. Herrero’s study on fatal black bear attacks from 1900 to 2009, published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, shows that male [...]

In a study titled Assisting the Public in Understanding the Relationships Between Food Resources and the Characteristics of Bear Populations, Washington State University’s Bear Center has shown why bears that have had access to high-quality foods can’t just switch to lower-quality foods when access is cut-off by human development. Studies like this challenge assumptions about how species will adapt [...]

Movements of a radio collared sub adult female grizzly bear. Bear was captured near McArthur Lake north of Sandpoint, Idaho. She was outfitted with a GPS radio collar and released north of Priest Lake, Idaho. The red dots on the map are her locations, the white line is the Selkirk recovery zone boundary. The international [...]

The Cascade Rare Carnivore Survey sampled for rare carnivores in the North Cascades Ecosystem (NCE)this last summer from July to October 2010. The sampling survey focused on grizzly bear, gray wolf, Canada lynx and wolverine using hair snare corrals and some remote digital cameras. Over 1,196 hair samples were collected for DNA analysis from 191 [...]

The Okanogan-Wenatchee NF hosted the most recent climate change workshop for the North Cascadia Adaptation Partnership (NCAP) on February 23, 2011 in Wenatchee. NCAP is a Forest Service (FS) and National Park Service (NPS) collaboration on climate change adaptation. NCAP is also a science/management partnership which includes the Mt. Baker Snoqualmie NF, the North Cascades National Park [...]

Grizzly bears are inactive for 5-6 months every winter. During this time, their heart rate slows from 84 beats per minute to around 19. If this happened in a human heart it could lead to congestive heart failure, but a bear’s heart goes through a complex series of changes that prevent complications. Studying how a bear’s heart changes [...]

I had the opportunity to interview David Moskowitz last month while he was here in the Methow Valley working on his new book “Wolves of the Pacific Northwest”. David, a professional wildlife tracker, photographer, and outdoor educator, has been studying wildlife and tracking in the pacific northwest since 1995. I asked him about the scope of [...]