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Grizzly bears flourishing in Yellowstone
Boulder, Colorado - The grizzly bear, on the edge of extinction in the lower 48 states just 25 years ago, is recolonizing its habitat south of Yellowstone National Park for the first time in a hundred years, a study has found.
The study, by Denver Zoo biologist Sanjay Pyare and several other bear biologists, concluded southern expansion from Yellowstone by grizzlies now is doubling every 20 years.
In the early 1980s, a study of the grizzly population in the greater Yellowstone area found fewer than 200 bears, and projected that the bear could be extinct by the 2000. Instead, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team estimated there now are a minimum of 500 bears in the ecosystem -- probably more -- and the population is healthy and expanding at the rate of about 4 percent per year.