Grizzly Bear Put Down for Killing Sheep

(KLIX) – A young bear that was relocated once has now been euthanized after it killed sheep on two different ranches near the town of Copeland.

Idaho Department of Fish and Game conservation officers, teaming with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, euthanized the 240-pound young adult grizzly bear on June 1 after reports that it killed seven sheep on the two ranches in the northern Idaho community.

Conservation officers on May 29 responded to a private landowner’s report that five sheep had been killed overnight, according to a news release by the department. On May 31, a new report came in that two lambs were killed eight miles south of the first event.

Fish and Game said the grizzly was the same bear captured last summer near Garwood and relocated to the Cabinet Mountains near the Idaho/Montana border.

“The bear had a history of harassing livestock and raiding orchards prior to the sheep depredations,” the release said.