An adult female grizzly bear was found dead in the Spotted Bear area south of Hungry Horse Reservoir.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks staff originally captured the 16-year-old grizzly bear in 2016 as part of a population trend monitoring program.
FWP staff discovered it on July 24, but was unable to determine a cause of death because of its condition.
So far this year, 27 grizzly bears have been removed from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) due to a variety of circumstances, including management action, vehicle collisions and augmentation.
On average, there are 25 annual removals in the NCDE a year.
So far this year, there have been 13 grizzly bears removed from the population that were classified as “vehicle collisions.” Of those, nine bears were killed by vehicles and four were cubs orphaned due to a collision.
The annual average for vehicle collision removals is three between 2000-2018.
