The Examiner
July 20, 2010

One June 17, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team gambled that nobody would happen upon a trap site near Yellowstone Park where a 430# male grizzly had just been caught in a foot snare, tranquilized, and released. Wrong. The bear killed 70 year-old botanist Erwin Evert. The government gambled. A citizen lost.

Evert, a prominent botanist from Oak Park, IL, had a summer cabin on Kitty Creek, roughly seven miles from the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. There were 13 other cabins in the area. A U.S. Forest Service road ends just beyond the cabins, then trail # 756 leads up Kitty Creek into the Shoshone National Forest.

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) gambled there was no need to warn cabin owners it was trapping grizzlies up Kitty Creek. The IGBST gambled there was no need to post warning signs at the trailhead. The IGBC gambled that all it had to do was post sign warning signs in the immediate area surrounding the bear trapping site. The IGBST gambled, Erwin Evert died.

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