Grizzly Yearling At Glacier National Park Died From Lacerated Jugular Vein

A young grizzly that Glacier National Park officials had hoped to send off to a zoo died from a lacerated jugular vein somehow sustained during an attempt to tranquilize the bear, officials said Monday.

The necropsy performed on the dead bear by Jennifer Ramsey, a wildlife veterinarian with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, did not specify how the vein was cut. The vet was able to determine, though, that the bear did not die from the initial darting.

Glacier officials had planned to send the yearling and a sibling to the Bronx Zoo in New York City after killing their mother, a 17-year-old sow that had come to view humans in the park as a source of food. However, after the sow was killed by two rangers armed with rifles last Monday the two yearlings were shot with tranquilizer darts, and the one died despite mouth-to-nose CPR efforts.

The 17-year-old sow, nick-named the "Oldman Lake Bear," was shot as she and her cubs were heading towards the backcountry campsite at Oldman Lake in the park's southeastern corner, not far from Two Medicine Lake.

Final details were still being worked out to transfer the other yearling to the Bronx Zoo.