Wyoming’s grizzly bear records cluster almost entirely in the state’s northwest corner, across Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and the surrounding Bridger-Teton National Forest, the core of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and one of the few places grizzlies still hold on in the lower 48 states. Outside that mountain core, in the sagebrush basins and high plains that cover most of Wyoming, grizzly records are essentially absent.
In Yellowstone’s forested slopes, alpine meadows, and river valleys, grizzlies work a shifting menu of grasses, roots, berries, insects, and whatever meat they find or catch, without the salmon runs that let coastal Alaska bears grow far larger. Females den through winter and emerge in spring with cubs, after a pregnancy that pauses mid-development until she settles into the den.
Records track that seasonal rhythm closely, climbing sharply from May through September as bears leave the den and Yellowstone’s visitor season peaks, then dropping off through the winter months when bears are denned and out of view. NatureServe ranks the species S1, Critically Imperiled, in Wyoming, a state-level status that reflects how small and geographically confined the Yellowstone population is, even though the species overall isn’t considered globally threatened.
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