Churchill and his wife have made the trip from Pocatello to Island Park on a regular basis since the 1970s to ride dirt bikes. He always carries a .38 -caliber revolver with him when he goes into the forest. He worries about running into a grizzly.

The Churchills haven't seen a grizzly bear Outside Yellowstone National Park and want to keep it that way.

"They would scare the pants off me," he said. "They kill you." It's been years since there were as many grizzly bears in the Targhee as there were last summer. No one knows if the increase is a fluke; a One-time occurrence or if it will become a trend. That prospect has Churchill thinking about buying a bigger gun.

Forest Service officials would not estimate how many grizzlies spent at least some of last summer in eastern Idaho and extreme western Wyoming.

"We know we don't see them all," said Mark Orme, forest wildlife biologist for the Targhee National Forest.

There were four different bears seen near the outlet to Henrys Lake. A grizzly was trapped near Parker, west of St. Anthony; there was a confirmed sighting near Kilgore; and nine more grizzlies were seen in other parts of the forest, he said.

Wildlife managers have been trying to increase the number of grizzlies in and around Yellowstone since the bears were listed under the Endangered Species Act as a threatened species in 1975.

They divided the region into bear management units. Inside these areas, preserving grizzly habitat is the main objective, which includes closing roads and reducing timber cutting.

Federal land makes up most of the bear management units around Yellowstone. But within the three units on Targhee, about 30,000 acres around Henrys Lake is privately owned.

There already are subdivisions in the area, and parts of Island Park and Mack's Inn are also near or in a bear management area. There are 595 registered voters in that part of Fremont County, but in the summer the population swells with vacationers. Between 2 million and 3 million people visit Targhee National Forest each year.

There already are grizzlies living outside the bear management areas, Orme said. Byron Egbert lost at least 14. sheep and as many as 40 to bears in Targhee west of Teton National Park.

Sheep aren't allowed on bear management units, but Egbert's flock was right next to one. "We got way too many bears," Egbert said.

He doesn't want all grizzlies shot, but thinks something needs to be done with bears that kill stock.

The Forest Service wants Egbert to graze his sheep somewhere else. It's even offered him land in other places, but he's hesitant to give up his grazing allotment.

"This is some of the best sheep range there is," he said.

While the rest of eastern Idaho turns brown during the hot, dry summers, Egbert's sheep grow fat in the green pastures on his allotment.

When or if the grizzly is ever taken off the endangered species list, states will take over many of the management responsibilities. Idaho hasn't started putting together a plan, said John Beecham, a wildlife research manager with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

If it looks like the bear will be de-listed, the agency will start, he said. Montana and Wyoming have talked about allowing a limited hunting season if bear populations recover. Hunting in Idaho is a possibility, Beecham said, but, until this year, there weren't enough grizzlies in the state for that to be a realistic option.

There's no way to make management decisions based on what happens in a single year, he said. It's hard to know the reason there were more bears in Targhee this year, said David Mattson, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Most biologists figure there are between 300 and 600 grizzlies in and around Yellowstone.

Bears are hard to count, but the numbers are more than a simple guess, he said. Scientists look at the number of sightings, their location and the number of bears with cubs to come up with population and trend estimates.

Last year there were 33 bears with newborn cubs in the Greater Yellowstone Area. In the 1980's that number averaged around 18 sows with cubs of the year. Most biologists think grizzly bear numbers have increased 1 percent to 3 percent since the 1980's.

Bear movements are not completely understood. The reduction in logging and the end of road building has definitely improved bear habitat in Targhee, Mattson said.

"We're seeing a re-occupation of that habitat." Also, when bears come back into the forest, they aren't killed like they were in the 1960s and 1970s, Mattson said. Records of grizzly deaths compiled by the multi-agency team managing the animals show that between 1959 and 1984, at least 44 and as many as 71 grizzlies were killed by people in Targhee.

Twenty deaths occurred near Squirrel Meadows in Wyoming. But bears also were killed near Reas Pass and Two Top in the Centennial Mountains. Seven were killed just east of U.S. Highway 20, near the Island Park Reservoir and three near Henrys Lake.

"There was an unsustainable level of mortality," Mattson said.

It's not even worth trying to figure out how many grizzlies will eventually live in Targhee or any other area around Yellowstone, said Chuck Schwartz, who heads up the multi-agency group managing the grizzly bears. They move so much and their movements vary from year to year, he said.

There's also no way to predict how often people will encounter grizzlies. Schwartz knows there will be problems. It happens anytime bear & people live near one another. More grizzlies mean trapping and relocating more bears, which will cost more money.

It also will take money to educate people about living in bear country - teach them not to leave things like trash, dog food and birdseed that attract bears outside. If bears don't find food around people they will just pass through. If grizzlies start associating people with food, they will keep coming back and will become problem bears. Problem bears usually end up dead, killed before they hurt a person, he said.

"Bears actually tolerate people a lot more than people tolerate bears," Schwartz said. Even as grizzly numbers increase, most people will probably never see one. Still, he understands that perception is a powerful force. It can make a man carry a gun into the woods when he rides a motorcycle.

People think bears are dangerous, and they can be, Schwartz said. But realistically, crossing the street is more dangerous, he said. Grizzlies usually maul two to four people a year in the continental United States. Since the turn of the century grizzlies have killed 19 people in the lower 48 states.

Grizzly bears have disappeared from 98 percent of their historic range in the continental United States, Schwartz said. What wildlife managers are trying to do is let the bears live in one small section of what was once grizzly country.

The bears are worth saving, he said.

It's not that Schwartz doesn't care about the people who must live with the grizzly. He does. Schwartz met with Moore and his neighbors this year. "I felt for them." A few dead calves are a big deal for Moore. It means the difference between making and not making a living.

"It puts hardship on you because the margin of making it work is almost nil." There is no real solution for Moore, Schwartz admits. It's not that Moore wants all the grizzlies dead, but having the bears on his ranch is a liability.

"If I didn't enjoy animals," he said, "I wouldn't be in the ranching business.