STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOS COURTESY OF IDAHO FISH AND GAME

The Wood River Valley Chamber must be doing an exceptionally good job of attracting visitors and new residents.

Its latest appears to have been a tiny black bear cub with exquisite tiny eyes, short rounded ears and a short inconspicuous tail.

Had enough! A Wood River Middle School student snapped this picture of the cub taking a nap in a tree near Wood River Middle School after sampling the valley’s four-star cuisine.

It has a story to tell, having walked more than 120 miles in 17 days from the wilderness west of Salmon to Hailey, where it promptly began enjoying the Wood River Valley’s fine cuisine munching on apples and residents’ delectable garbage.

The story began in Carmen, a little town just north of Salmon, says Magic Valley Fish and Game communications officer Terry Thompson. There, wildlife biologists have been dealing with a significant uptick in black bears, who have been rummaging through unsecured residential garbage and pet food.

They noted that a particular black bear cub was becoming a repeat visitor to a residence where it was dining on unsecured pet food. Fearing that it would become food conditioned and have to be put down due to public safety concerns, they decided to relocate it.

On Thursday, Oct. 3, a regional wildlife biologist from Salmon darted and ear-tagged the cub, relocating it to Panther Creek, a rugged isolated area in the Salmon National Forest.

The black bear cub with a green ear tag was found in the yard of a Hailey home after walking more than 120 miles from the woods west of Salmon.

Somehow over the next 17 days the little cutie found its way to Hailey where it was spotted by residents over the weekend of Oct. 19-20. The distance between where it was released and Hailey was estimated to be more than 120 air miles, Thompson said.

In order to get here, the bear cub had to wade through many large rivers and smaller streams and cross several mountain ranges, state highways and county roads where it likely encountered untold number of vehicles, he added,

The Magic Valley Regional office was first notified by the cub on Monday, Oct. 21. Conservation officers found the young bear in a residential backyard eating ruby red apples. A Wood River Middle School student had captured a picture of the bear near the middle school the day before.

Once on scene, Fish and Game officers determined the young bear was in good physical condition and decided to relocate it again. Using a baited cage trap, they caught the yearling bear and took it to the regional office in Jerome to await relocation outside of the Wood River Valley away from fruit, garbage and other attractants.

On Tuesday, Oct. 22, they took it to southeast Idaho, releasing the bear east of Pocatello in the Caribou National Forest.

Since early August the Magic Valley Region has received more than 80 calls about bear sightings from the Wood River Valley. That’s a fraction of bear sightings over the past few months, Thompson said.

Fish and Game has relocated two black bears to other areas of the state and transported one bear cub to a licensed bear rehabilitation center in 2024. No bears have been euthanized in the Wood River Valley since 2022.

Residents can keep bears safe by storing their garbage in a garage or shed until the morning of pickup, picking fruit as soon as it ripens, picking up fruit that has fallen to the ground, keeping pet food inside and taking down bird feeders when bears are getting ready to hibernate or coming out of hibernation.

Learn more at https://wrvwildlifesmart.org/.