Hunter mistakenly kills grizzly bear north of Priest Lake

A hunter killed an endangered grizzly bear last week north of Upper Priest Lake and told wildlife officials he mistakenly identified the bruin as a black bear.

The hunter, from Centralia, Washington, reported the June 8 incident in North Idaho’s Boundary County, said T.J. Ross, regional communications manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Ross said the state agency issued the hunter a citation because he was legally responsible to identify his target before shooting.

Ross said the department has a policy of not naming hunters who kill animals because of mistaken identity if they report it.

“I’m not covering for the individual. It’s our policy and we want people to self-report,” he said.

However, the case was sent to Boundary County Prosecutor Andrakay Pluid, who identified the hunter as 47-year-old Daniel J. Pink, of Centralia.

“My office has received the case information” on Tuesday, Pluid said.

Pink, who could not be reached Tuesday for comment, faces the misdemeanor charge of taking a game animal during a closed season. He faces a maximum $1,000 fine, up to six months in jail and a civil penalty up to $10,000, but all penalties are subject to a judge’s discretion.

Pluid noted that judges rarely sentence anyone to the maximum penalties, “especially for misdemeanors,” she said.

The grizzly shooting comes a week after a group of environmentalists issued a news release calling on officials from Idaho and Wyoming to require hunters to pass tests showing they can discern the difference between black and grizzly bears.

The letter followed an incident in May when a hunter shot a 530-pound grizzly bear outside of Yellowstone National Park after he also mistook it for a black bear.

Bear hunters in Washington and Montana must pass such tests to purchase tags.

“I think all of us who are bear advocates … are upset that this keeps happening,” said Lizzy Pennock, who describes herself as a “carnivore coexistent attorney” with the WildEarth Guardians in Missoula.

Pennock said state wildlife agencies that allow black bear hunting where grizzlies also reside “have a massively heightened obligation to make sure that those people they are giving licenses to know that they are able to identify a black bear from a grizzly bear.

“And this is all on the backdrop of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears,” Pennock continued.

“Mistaken-identity killings like this, in addition to all of the other sources of mortality for grizzly bears, just show that this is not a species that should be removed from its protective status.”

Coming south

The killing of the 350-pound male grizzly in Boundary County follows two other recent grizzly bear sightings that prompted wildlife officials to issue a warning last week for folks to follow proper bear techniques when they recreate in North Idaho.

Ross said hunters had placed baits out for black bears, a practice that is legal in Idaho, and caught trail-camera images of a grizzly bear east of Coeur d’Alene and another in a game hunting unit just east of Lake Pend Oreille.

The spring black bear season generally runs from April 15 to about June 15, although the closing date varies in some units.

Ross noted that most grizzly bears sightings occur in the extreme north portions of the state.

“However, there have been grizzlies documented in every (game management) unit in the Panhandle,” Ross said. “If you live and recreate in the Panhandle, you are certainly in grizzly bear country and should act accordingly.”

Ross said his agency operates on the belief that the North Idaho region is home to 150 to 175 bears, based on everything from sightings, GPS trackers, encounters, collected genetic material and trail-camera images.

“It’s not a number pulled out of thin air,” Ross said. “It’s based on data, but all that comes with the caveat that it is an estimate.”

Asked how many other bears have been killed by hunters who thought they were shooting black bears, Ross deferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which works closely with Fish and Game.

Wayne Kasworm, a wildlife biologist based in Libby, Montana, works for the federal Grizzly Bear Recovery Program as part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

He said Idaho’s working estimate of bears in the area was probably a bit high.

Kasworm said about 100 grizzly bears inhabit the Selkirk Mountains of Washington, North Idaho and up to the area around Nelson, B.C.

And unlike tourists, bears don’t care about state or international borders. “Nothing prevents them from going back and forth,” he said.

However, the recent sightings near Coeur d’Alene and Lake Pend Oreille were significant, Kasworm said.

“A bear that far south is certainly unusual,” he said, “but it is occurring more often.”

Possibly the most famous southern sojourn occurred in 2018 when a young grizzly caused a stir when the bear was filmed near Athol.

That bear was later captured.

“We know from genetics that he originated from the Cabinets,” Kasworm, said referring to the Cabinet Mountains of Northwest Montana and North Idaho. “That bear was relocated back to the Cabinets.”

The young male then ventured north into the Yaak River area of Montana before he denned along the border with Canada.

“Then in 2019, he was also responsible for some livestock losses and he was removed, as well,” Kasworm said.

Ross, the Idaho spokesman, noted that something else recently occurred that he called “unprecedented.” Fish and Game received between 20 and 22 reports of grizzly bears preying on livestock in 2022 in Boundary County.

“We have spent a lot of time and energy trying to equip landowners on how to live in grizzly bear country,” Ross said. “That’s a different conversation than camping in bear country.”

Kasworm, too, said his agency acted after the 2022 predation reports.

“We did remove two grizzly bears from near Bonners Ferry last year for … killing livestock,” he said. “Both of those bears were males.

“After we removed those bears, so far this year, we have not had any other issues. So, our hope is that we removed the bears that were causing the issues.”

Mortality versus reproduction

In the past 20 years, some 23 grizzlies, including the Athol video star, have been killed in Idaho and Washington through management, or by other means.

Six of those deaths, including the one last week, came at the hands of hunters who mistook the grizzlies for black bears, Kasworm said.

“We’ve had some for defense of life, several are under investigation, we had a train collision and a vehicle collision,” he said. “Three were management removals. We had one bear killed by a neck snare.”

Also in that group were four natural deaths that involved yearlings or cubs.

“And recognize, these are what we know of,” Kasworm said. “There are obviously a lot of other bears that died for other reasons. We know because they were radio-collared or other information led us to it.”

But the good news, he said, is that the overall number of grizzly bears is on the increase, despite the fatal human interactions.

“Out measurement suggests that (the grizzly population) is growing about 2.5% per year,” Kasworm said.

One of the factors for the small percentage of growth is that grizzlies take longer to reproduce, he said.

A female black bear typically produces cubs every two years, while grizzly females typically reproduce every three years.

Also female black bears typically reach the age to reproduce a year or two before grizzlies, which may wait until age 6 or 7 to have cubs.

Black bears “are far more productive from a reproductive standpoint than are grizzly bears,” he said.

Misleading colors

Both Ross and Kasworm said the least effective way for hunters to determine a bear species is by using visual color.

Despite their name, black bears only tend to be black about two-thirds of the time. The other third tend to have a shade of brown that can vary from blonde to reddish to chocolate.

Grizzlies, as well, present in a wide range of different colors.

“I have seen and captured grizzly bears that are coal black in color,” Kasworm said.

Ross said he was aware of a letter last week from Pennock and others calling on Idaho and Wyoming to institute identification tests for bear tags.

He noted that the Fish and Game website has information for hunters to help them differentiate the species.

“It’s a conversation we are currently having,” Ross said of the tests. “I don’t know the prospect of that becoming a reality in the future.”

For his part, Kasworm said anything helps.

He noted that while Montana requires the identification tests for bear tags, hunters only have to complete that quiz once in their lifetimes.

“While that is valuable, sometimes repetition of skills is important to retain those skills,” he said. “Mistaken identities are a black eye for hunting.

“It’s not just bears,” Kasworm continued, “it’s any big game hunting. Hunters need to be careful and know what they are shooting before they pull the trigger.”