Grizzlies. Photo: USFWS.
On January 22nd, Wyoming Game and Fish released its second official report on the tragic death of hunting guide Mark Uptain in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Mark was killed on September 14th, 2018, after being attacked by an adult sow grizzly and her year-and-a-half old male cub. The first official report was filed by WYGF not quite a month after Uptain was killed. As one might expect, because this report was released relatively early in the investigation, it was premature at best. This most recent iteration, however, attempts to backfill many of the holes created by the first report as well as to bolster at least some of WYGF’s original conclusions. One of the report’s handful of reliable proofs is that the bears they “removed” were indeed the two bears involved in the attack, which was determined through the analysis of DNA evidence. However, while this determination may allay some concerns, this finding seems almost insignificant when compared to other, more troubling aspects of WYGF’s handling of the investigation. Equally troubling is that no one in the mainstream press seems especially interested in asking WYGF some of the more baffling questions raised by their reports. Case closed in fatal griz attack, one headline reads. Despite what this headline would have us believe, however, this case is only just getting started.
As someone who has been following Mark Uptain’s story since it broke, I’ve read…