Wildlife Officials Urge Caution After Grizzly Bear Spotted in Odd Location

(KLIX) – Wildlife officials are urging hunters to use caution in a couple of hunting units due to grizzly bear activity in the area.

A radio-collared grizzly bear was recently reported in the area of hunting units 10 and 12 in the Clearwater region, Idaho Fish and Game said in a news release.

It said the most recent data from the bear’s radio collar places it in the Kelly Creek drainage, a tributary of the North Fork of the Clearwater River in northern Idaho. The area is not a place where grizzlies are usually seen, the department said, though there is a black bear season open in the area.

Grizzly bears are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, so it is illegal to kill them.

“We want to make sure that hunters in the area be extra-vigilant and careful while afield, both in identifying their targets and while traveling to their hunting spot,” Jon Rachael, state game manager for Fish and Game, said a statement, “because we do have at least one known grizzly bear in there.”