A DNA-based grizzly bear population study is slated to being this summer in the Cabinet-Yaak area . . .
A small army will soon begin a summer of scouring the woods of extreme Northwest Montana and northern Idaho, collecting grizzly bear hair for a genetics-based population study.
The project is being led by Kate Kendall, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher who pioneered a similar large landscape grizzly bear population study in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem in 2004.
On Wednesday, Kendall was on her way to lead 70 field workers in a nine-day training session at a Forest Service work station in the upper Yaak Valley not far from the Canadian border.