LANDER -- Encounters between grizzly bears and hunters often mean dead bears, but it doesn’t have to be that way, according to a research biologist's new study.

After studying 68 cases gleaned from 1992 to 2004, Chuck Schwartz found that 19 percent of the grizzly bear deaths were due to out-of-season vandals, 4 percent in defense of property, 59 percent in self-defense and 18 percent as mistaken identity, where grizzlies were mistaken for black bears in spring hunts.

“You have to remember that about half of all grizzly bear deaths are management removals,” said Schwartz, in a telephone interview from his Missoula, Mont., office.

Schwartz, leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said the grizzly deaths he studied were all reported by the public. They came in a mix of reports obtained from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For the rest of the story read Wednesday's Casper Star-Tribune.