Grizzly bear sightings near Utah border spark speculation of return

Grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

UTAH — Grizzly bear sightings in southwest Wyoming have spurred rumors that the large predators might venture over the Utah border. 

The last known grizzly bear in Utah, called “Old Ephraim,” was killed in 1923. But now grizzlies have been spotted as close as 20 miles from the border, near Bear Lake. 

“That’s not where grizzly bears are living, but that’s sort of the closest that one’s been recorded as they move around the greater Yellowstone,” DWR Game Mammals Program Coordinator Darren Debloois told ABC4.

The grizzly population has more than doubled in the past fifty years, from 700 to nearly 2,000. Just over 700 of those reside in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which is the closest population to Utah.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we got one on a camera or something like that … They have been close, and so it wouldn’t be super surprising,” Debloois said.

Wyoming wildlife officials are more skeptical that grizzly bears would take up residence in Utah.

“That bear that was seen just north of Kemmerer, there’s still that potential that a bear will end up in the Southern Wyoming range, but the likelihood of one going to Utah is pretty low,” Large Carnivore Section Supervisor for Wyoming Game and Fish, Dan Thompson, told ABC4. “But, it is a very interesting dynamic to see these bears continuing to disperse into places they haven’t been in a long time.”

According to reporting from KSL, if a grizzly were confirmed in Utah, DeBloois suspects state wildlife managers, in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, would attempt to capture and relocate the bear to one of the grizzly recovery zones outside the state, mirroring the state’s current approach to wolf management.