MTLabrador
Well-known member
I agree the habitat certainly exists for grizzlies in the Bighorns, but there are a lot more people recreating in the Bighorns than in the Absarokas, especially in the more roaded areas.It's seems funny to me in the last decade that the game and fish promote healthy populations of bears in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem but manage them to stay out of the big horns. The Big Horns would be perfect habitat for grizzlies, albeit human encounters would go WAY up and they would probably have an impact on the black bear populations. The biologists I know in Cody have said the amount of grizzlies they catch on that side of the basin near the big horns has steadily increased in the last five years. Meaning from zero captures to one or two a year. It would not surprise me at all if the bears manage to have a resident presence on the big horns in the next decade. If we were serious about the conservation of the species I would love to see grizzlies on that side of the basin. Too many special interests don't want them there though. Exact same thing applies with wolves.
There’s already constant black bear conflicts in the Bighorns, and there will be a lot of human conflict if/when grizzlies become established. There are occasional wolves in the Bighorns now.