A young grizzly, dubbed "Loma Bear" for its historic journey east onto the prairie last summer, was captured again Monday on the plains of Chouteau County, this time north of Carter.

"This sub-adult male has used up his two chances," Madel said.

The bear is not one of two young grizzlies that have been spotted this summer near Carter, authorities said.

On Tuesday evening, Montana wildlife authorities still were awaiting word whether the Bear Center, a research and education facility at Washington State University, would accept the Loma Bear, Madel said.

If it won't, the grizzly that reminded 21st Century Montanans that grizzlies once occupied the state's prairie will be euthanized at the state lab in Bozeman, Madel said.

The Loma Bear was captured Monday evening, 12 miles north of Carter on the Charles and Tami Good farm. The 3 1/2 year-old male weighed 320 pounds.

It was not in great shape. On a "fat scale" of 1 to 5, with 5 being the biggest, the bear scored a 2.

When the bear was captured last year near Loma it weighed 238 pounds.

Two traps were set on the Good ranch because the bear entered a chicken shed and killed a couple of chickens.

"We're way out in the middle of the flat country, where the bear shouldn't in the hell be," Charles Carter said.

The grizzly first showed up Saturday. The bear was nabbed Monday evening, just as Good was preparing to go to bed.

"I think we caught a bear," Good told his wife at the time.

Last summer, the same bear traveled 177 miles, as the Teton River flows, from the Rocky Mountain Front to Loma. It was called the Loma Bear after that.

It was the first time that Montana bear managers had seen a bear that far east of the Rocky Mount Front. The grizzly was listed as a threatened species in 1975.

Grizzlies used to be common on the prairie, but they were all but wiped out by the late 1880s, according to bear managers.

Since protections were put in place, bears are beginning to make the prairie a part of their home ranges again.

The Loma grizzly, which was first captured June 30, 2009, was relocated to the Flathead National Forest, west of the Continental Divide.

But in August, Dan Carney, a wildlife biologist with the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, picked up a signal from the bear's radio collar, Madel said.

The bear had crossed the Divide, coming out of the mountains near East Glacier. The bear was northeast of Browning, in open grassland, and headed toward Alberta.

That's the last time authorities knew where the bear was until it showed up again in Chouteau County this week. When it was trapped Monday, the radio collar was no longer on its neck.

Update on this topic: Loma grizzly likely to be euthanized, Great Falls Tribune, July 15th, 2010