On Monday two grizzly bears euthanized by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks after they were found about 3.5 miles south of Stanford, Montana, far from their regular stomping grounds.

"We had two grizzly bears in the Stanford area that had been preying on calves, they actually killed four calves in the area, so we made the decision to euthanize them," said FWP spokeswoman Laurie Wolf. "They were actually about 2.5 years old and they weighed a little less than 200 pounds. The public had been reporting sightings of bears over the past two weeks."

Wolf says the bears were on the Surprise Creek Hutterite Colony when they killed the cattle last Friday. The bears were killed on Monday. Wolf says grizzly bears haven’t been spotted that far east for over a hundred years.

"These two males were the first to get the farthest that we have seen east of the Rocky Mountain Front in more than a century," Wolf said. "They've been pushing out further, and further over the last couple of years. Typically we've been seeing them along the Rocky Mountain Front, last year we got sightings in the Fort Benton area, but this is by far the furthest, they've just been extending that boundary further, and further."

Although the Yellowstone Grizzly bears were recently delisted, the grizzly bears from North Central Montana are still a protected species under the Endangered Species Act.

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