Lincoln County Sheriff’s Deputy Caleb Ellis was patrolling Highway 233 near Kemmerer on Thursday afternoon when he caught a rare sight — a grizzly bear out and about.
It’s not completely unheard of to see grizzlies that far south, but it was unusual to see one that close to the road, Ellis told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
“I think he was headed somewhere, and I startled him,” he said.
Ellis stayed in his patrol vehicle and shot some photos of the grizzly with his personal phone.
“There were some posts online with the photo, saying it was taken with the patrol vehicle’s dash cam, but I took the photos with my phone,” he said.
After the brief encounter, the grizzly headed off on its way, likely back up into the mountains, Ellis said.
He felt lucky to have gotten such a good look at a grizzly, an uncommon, but not completely unique, sight in the region.
“There’s been some reports of grizzly sightings in the past. Grizzlies are here and there in this area,” he said.
Ranging Grizzlies
Grizzlies popping up by Kemmerer fits a wider pattern of the bears ranging far and wide from their core habitat in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
After years of rumors that they had made it all the way to the Bighorn Mountains, a grizzly bear was recently killed by game agents near Ten Sleep for attacking cattle.
Last summer, a grizzly was spotted in Montana’s Pryor Mountains near Wyoming. It was the first time a grizzly had been confirmed there since the 1800s.
And farther north, grizzlies have been pushing out of core habitat in and around Glacier National Park, venturing ever-father east into Montana’s high prairies.
They were recently spotted all the way out in Montana’s famed Missouri Breaks country.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
