Griz cub necropsy released

A necropsy has determined that the grizzly yearling darted by Glacier National Park rangers on Aug. 17 died from internal bleeding due to laceration of the bear's jugular vein.

The necropsy was not able to determine exactly how the vein was ruptured. It is not known if the yearling's vein was severed when the bear moved or perhaps when it fell.

The yearling was darted as part of a bear management action to remove a 17-year-old female grizzly from the Park after bear management rangers determined her to be conditioned to humans. After the female was removed on Aug. 17, rangers darted and tranquilized her two yearlings. One cub died shortly after being tranquilized. Rangers attempted to resuscitate the yearling by performing mouth-to-nose CPR, but to no avail.

Glacier's internationally-vetted Bear Management Plan and Guidelines specifies that conditioned bears that display over familiarity must be removed from the wild population. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oversees and coordinates the transfer of captive grizzlies to federally-authorized zoos and captive facilities, none of which were willing to take an adult bear. Final details are still being worked out to transfer the other yearling to the Bronx Zoo in New York.

Glacier's Bear Management Plan and Guidelines are dynamic management tools that receive periodic international peer review. As a protected species under the Endangered Species Act, the decision to remove the family of grizzlies was not taken lightly, but was the result of Glacier's ongoing coordination with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the agency charged with administering the Endangered Species Act.