Idaho wildlife officials are asking the public to help find the person who shot and killed a grizzly bear near Island Park, according to a news release from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
Officials said an adult female grizzly was found shot to death on September 2 in Clark County, a rural part of eastern Idaho. According to the news release, the bear was located in a drain near Lower Shotgun Road west of the Island Park Reservoir.
Grizzly bears in Idaho are protected by federal and state law. It is illegal to harm or kill someone unless you are acting in self-defense.
Fish and Game Conservation Officer Barry Cummings said in the news release that “no detail is too small” to share with the agency.
Anyone with information about the case can contact Fish and Game’s Upper Snake regional office at 208-525-7290 or call the Citizens Against Poaching hotline at 1-800-632-5999. Tipsters can also file a report online at idfg.idaho.gov/poacher.
This year, two grizzly bears were shot and killed in self-defense incidents near Island Park. The area, which borders Yellowstone National Park, is home to Idaho’s highest concentration of grizzly bears.
In one case, a man shot a grizzly bear that attacked him and his girlfriend as they unloaded items from their car at their home. The other incident occurred a day before the poached grizzly was found. Two archery elk hunters shot and killed a male grizzly after it knocked one of them to the ground and bit him.
Fish and Game determined that the killings were justified.
The penalty for illegally killing a grizzly bear is stiff because it is protected by the Endangered Species Act. A person convicted of poaching a grizzly faces a $50,000 fine and a year in prison. An Ashton father and son killed a grizzly in 2021 and were handed thousands of dollars in fines and a lifetime hunting ban.
