Increase in Bear-Vehicle Collisions

Two bears have been killed by vehicles in the last few weeks near Cody.
The Cody Enterprise reports that Cody resident Lynne Simpson’s vehicle collided with a young grizzly bear near Pahaska in mid-September, and another grizzly was killed by a vehicle near the Reef Creek Picnic Area on Highway 296 on October 18th.
Wyoming Game and Fish Bear Wise Coordinator Dusty Lasseter said that the two- or three-year-old bear that Simpson hit had probably been eating gooseberries close to the highway – additionally, it was dusk and visibility was poor.
Lasseter told the newspaper that bear-vehicle accidents are rare, with usually just two or three in all of the western states per year. He said that the recent increase in the number of collisions could be blamed on a higher density of the bear population, which forces the animals to spread out into a wider territory.