Tag Archives: chickens

Northwest Montana grizzlies could be delisted by late 2016

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still projecting the delisting of grizzly bears in this corner of Montana within the next couple of years . . .

Wildlife managers could propose the delisting of the major grizzly bear population in Northwest Montana by late 2016.

A collective of federal, state and tribal officials gathered in Hungry Horse last week for the spring meeting of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem subcommittee. The group discussed updates on local grizzly conservation and management issues, including the ongoing problem of bear attractants like chicken coops.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing nearly 3,000 public comments on a post delisting management strategy for grizzly bears in the NCDE that was proposed a year ago. Chris Servheen, FWS grizzly bear recovery coordinator, said the plan would incorporate the comments and be completed in the coming months. After that, a threat analysis will be conducted to identify several characteristics of the NCDE, including the bear population’s status and the status of its habitat and regulatory mechanisms that would be in place to protect grizzlies if they were delisted. This analysis is expected to start in 2015, according to federal officials.

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Chickens ‘like crack’ to bears

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Here’s another article discussing the growing problem of bears being attracted to chickens and chicken feed . . .

For years now, bear managers have been preaching the same sermon — residents in bear country need to secure their garbage, take in their bird feeders each spring, clean up fruit trees in the fall and feed their pets indoors.

But now there’s a growing new problem — chickens.

“Chickens are the new garbage,” Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said last week during a meeting of bear managers from across the state.

More and more people are now raising chickens as the move to small agricultural operations in both rural areas and in towns continues to grow.

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For bears, ‘chickens are the new garbage’

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Bears like chickens, which is causing headaches for bear management personnel . . .

Wildlife and land managers say they are seeing gradual acceptance and improvements in public education and outreach for grizzly bear conservation, but there also are setbacks in some areas, most notably the proliferation of bear-attracting chicken coops across Western Montana.

“The hobby chicken farmer is one of the greatest threats to the grizzly bear these days,” Chris Servheen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator, said Wednesday in Hungry Horse.

Servheen was one of the speakers during a meeting of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem subcommittee, a multi-agency panel that guides bear conservation and management.

As state grizzly bear management specialist Jamie Jonkel puts it, “chickens are the new garbage.”

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Grizzly bear taste for chicken makes for conflicts — and dead bears

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We mentioned this last year, but it bears repeating: Human-bear conflict is not just caused by garbage, dog food and bird feeders. There is a growing problem these days with unprotected chicken coops. The New York Times ran a story a couple of weeks ago . . .

Longing for fresh eggs, Levi and Nauni Griffith began raising chickens in their backyard. They started with a few, and eventually had 116. Until late last summer, that is, when a grizzly sow and her cub, filling the night with fearful growling, got in among the shrieking chickens and then lumbered off, leaving bits of 99 birds behind…

In northwestern Montana, as in much of the country, more people are keeping chickens. And bears of all kinds are developing a taste for poultry that lures them into populated areas, presenting a dangerous situation for both people and, especially, for bears.

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Rise in bear-related chicken raids ruffling feathers of wildlife managers

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This very interesting, if lengthy, article is not nearly as silly as it sounds. Turns out the rising interest in hobby farming is triggering some pretty serious bear conflicts. Bears like chicken and sweet corn just as much as humans do.

There are some great quotes here from a collection of highly irritated wildlife managers.

From today’s Missoulian . . .

More grizzly bears are keying in on unprotected chicken coops in western Montana, with increasingly deadly consequences – both for the bears and the pilfered poultry.

The rise in bear-related chicken raids is ruffling the feathers of state and federal wildlife managers who are forced to move or kill bears that receive a food reward, be it from a trash can, a fruit orchard or a bird pen. The conflicts are entirely avoidable, managers say, but it’s the responsibility of landowners to buck the disturbing trend…

“I sometimes get calls daily on chickens, whereas I used to never hear about it,” said Jamie Jonkel, FWP’s bear management specialist in Missoula. “Chickens are the new garbage. There are so many chickens on the landscape that it’s like having garbage cans with wings just tempting the bears.”

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