For more than a decade, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe Tribal Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department have been working collaboratively to monitor grizzly bears across jurisdictional lines. This year has been no exception.

Recently, a team from all three agencies worked together on the Wind River Reservation to capture, evaluate and release grizzly bears, and they were successful once again.  In only two nights, two adult male bears were caught and evaluated. Data like weight, body mass index, girth, and paw width were collected on the bears before they were radio-collared and released.

“The data collected from these bears will assist with the overall evaluation of this population and couldn’t be done without the cooperative monitoring we have all been doing,” says Large Carnivore Supervisor Dan Thompson, “and having two unmarked bears captured so quickly serves as another indicator of a robust population that is increasing in distribution.”

This example of collaboration across jurisdictional lines with these three agencies is not unique. Collaboration also occurs with many other species like bighorn sheep and sauger.