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Jackson Hole News & Guide, Mike Koshmrl– Grizzly bears are emerging from their dens around the ecosystem and also in Jackson Hole, where one of the big bruins has been spotted in northern Grand Teton National Park.

Reports of grizzly tracks have been also called in to Grand Teton authorities but are considered unconfirmed. The sighting in the north part of the park, however, is a credible one, park spokesman Andrew White said.

“It was one of the wildlife biologists that observed it,” White said last week.

The park is saying little about the bear, although White said it was observed March 12 or 13 in the area around Colter Bay and Moran.

Grizzlies are emerging from their dens in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem at around the normal time, or slightly later than expected, Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team leader Frank van Manen said. Four or five grizzlies in the region fixed with GPS equipment are moving around enough to suggest they’re out of their dens, he said.

“Chronologically, what we’re seeing so far is, I would say, right on target with what we’re seeing with historic data,” van Manen said.

The grizzlies that have emerged are well distributed around the landscape. Bears have come out of dens on the northern end of their range in the ecosystem and south to the Jackson Hole area, he said.

The first confirmed sighting of a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park this year came Feb. 22. Wolf biologists monitoring packs in the park’s Nez Perce Creek drainage observed the animal, a large specimen believed to be a boar.

As of Friday only one tracked sow, a solitary grizzly without cubs, is suspected of being out of the den, van Manen said.

Typically, male grizzlies come out of their dens first, followed by solitary females and then sows with cubs.

Grand Teton park records suggest that most males are out of dens by March 15, White said.

While snow and cold often pushes bears into hibernation in late fall, come springtime it’s other factors that wipe away the torpor, van Manen said.

“Emergence tends to be driven less by weather conditions,” van Manen said. “It tends to be driven more by the physiological condition of the bear. Is the bear ready to physically emerge from the den?”

 

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