Biologists Are Extending Their Grizzly Bear Research

If you are heading into Yellowstone National Park soon, make sure you pay attention to some signs in the back country and on trails.

Yellowstone National Park announced today that in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park service have extended their ongoing efforts to study the population of grizzly bears in the Great Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Biologists with the Independent Grizzly Bear Study Team have been field capturing grizzly bears to tag them to monitor. They will keep dong this activity now through October 23rd.

All of the capture points are marked and have a variety of warning signs. So if you are in the back country or on some trails make sure you are aware of your surroundings.

Monitoring grizzly bears is vital to the ongoing recovery of the grizzly bear population. In order to capture the bars, the scientists often use traps that have natural food sources such as road killed deer and elk.

As soon as the bears are captured they are tagged and are handled safely using strict protocols that protects the scientists and the bears.

Yellowstone National Park does this every year and one of the reasons why they decided to extend the research is due to the park was closed for a few months where they could have done more research. Luckily, bears typically won't go into hibernation till November so this is a great time for the scientists to do their studies.

Again, if you are planning on going to Yellowstone National Park be aware of signage so you don't get near a grizzly bear trapping area.

For more details, check out Yellowstone National Park.