A good report on discussions of bear attractants at the recent Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bear management meeting . . .
Chickens continue to be a problem for bear managers in the Flathead Valley, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear specialist Tim Manley told Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem bear managers last week.
Manley said of the 10 bear complaints he’s responded to so far this spring, nearly all of them involved bears getting into chickens, ducks or both. The most effective way to keep bears out of coops and feed is electric fencing or electric wiring over gates and doors.
He showed a comical video of a grizzly bear attempting to get through the door of a coop with an electric screen over it. The bear was shocked, ran away and never came back. He also showed a video of just how well bears catch chickens — pouncing on chickens like they were salmon and swallowing them just as fast.
Debo Powers, NFPA Vice President, attended the spring Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bear management meeting yesterday. Here is her report:
I remember the old days when Chuck Jonkel held an annual Grizzly Bear Research meeting in Sondreson Hall to share grizzly bear research with North Fork landowners. We would sit on the uncomfortable wooden benches in the sweltering temperatures of a hot summer day and listen to the enthusiastic reports from young bear researchers. Those were the meetings that fanned the flames of my love for grizzly bears.
It has been many years since those meetings happened, but the memories associated with them prompted me to attend Wednesday’s meeting of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC), which was held in the conference room of the Hungry Horse Ranger Station. Rather than the animated stories of youthful researchers filled with an infectious passion for learning about grizzlies in order to save them from extinction, today’s meeting featured reports from people from various agencies and tribes who have successfully brought about grizzly bear recovery in the Crown of the Continent. It’s amazing to see how things can change in a few decades when humans work together to save a fellow species.
The packed meeting was facilitated with humor and style by Deb Mucklow, the Spotted Bear District Ranger. Numerous agencies and tribes participated in the meeting. Members of the public , representatives from various environmental groups, and reporters from Flathead Beacon, Hungry Horse News, and NF News were present in the audience.
The reports were fascinating and focused on the conservation strategies that have been used by different groups in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE). Some of the topics covered were: the effectiveness of food storage orders to decrease grizzly habituation, educational resources to train humans to operate awarely in grizzly country, the use of snow rangers and fly-overs to monitor snowmobiling in grizzly habitat (especially when bears are emerging from dens), and reports from management officials, like Tim Manley, on bear conflicts this spring.
Rick Mace, who will be retiring soon, received a beautiful plaque with a huge grizzly paw for his three decades of leadership in grizzly bear conservation and management. Afterwards, he presented the results of his trend monitoring research on grizzly bear populations in the 23 management units of the NCDE. It was nice to notice that we live in one of most densely populated grizzly habitats in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. Rick’s final written report will be available in a few months.
It was a day of information and sharing . . . a day well spent, despite the beautiful weather that beckoned us to be outdoors in grizzly country.
The public is invited to participate in the upcoming spring Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) grizzly bear management meeting hosted by Flathead National Forest. The meeting is scheduled from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on May 6, 2015 at the Hungry Horse/Glacier View and Spotted Bear Ranger District Office located at 10 Hungry Horse Drive in Hungry Horse, Montana.
During the meeting there will be updates from NCDE members on the Draft NCDE Grizzly Bear Conservation Strategy, work plans for the coming year, educational tools, bear mortality rates for 2014 and bear management spring activity.
Bears are definitely on the move and looking for munchies, as witnessed by events near Big Fork earlier this month . . .
Officials with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks caught and relocated two large grizzlies near Bigfork earlier this month during a trapping effort to capture a calf-killing bear that remains at large.
On April 2, a landowner reported that a newborn calf had been killed on his property near Mud Lake, while a second calf was missing. There were large grizzly tracks at the site, and investigators determined a large grizzly killed and consumed the missing calf.
The investigation showed that the bears trapped by FWP officials were not involved in the April 2 incident involving the deaths of the two calves, but FWP Grizzly Bear Specialist Tim Manely radio-collared and relocated the bears and continued trying to capture the target bear.
The bears are definitely on the move. We spotted a black bear right on the south edge of Coram yesterday, quite close to a number of buildings . . .
With the arrival of spring, bears are emerging from their mountain dens and descending into the lower valleys in search of food.
Earlier this week, tribal biologists located a radio-collared female grizzly bear at the base of the Mission Mountains on the Flathead Reservation.
Stacy Courville, wildlife program bear biologist with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, reminds the public that springtime is accompanied by an increase in bear activity. After stirring awake, bears begin seeking food sources, and they are often drawn to items such as garbage, pet food, bird feeders and chicken coops. Food-depleted bears can react aggressively if they’re surprised while feeding.
A reminder from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks . . .
Some of Montana’s hibernating black bears and grizzly bears are beginning to stir.
Adult males usually emerge first from winter dens in mid-March. When bears emerge from their dens they are physically depleted and food is a priority.
Bears are often tempted to go where raccoons and domestic dogs are getting into garbage. If these animals are already causing problems nearby, consider it an early warning that food attractants are available and need to be removed.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ bear experts stress that conflict prevention steps can greatly reduce the chances of attracting black and grizzly bears.
FWP recommends bear resistant bins in communities and on ranches; electric fence systems to protect bee yards and sheep bedding grounds; random redistribution of livestock carcasses each spring; and educational programs in schools and communities.
FWP’s Be Bear Aware website at fwp.mt.gov is an easy way for homeowners and landowners to assess what they need to do now to prevent bear conflicts. Go there for tips and tools on obtaining and using bear spray, safe camping and hiking, access to bear resistant products and a guide to other items that attract bears to a property.
MWA and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation are holding the second in their Winter Speaker Series this Thursday. Grizzly expert Steve Primm will share his experiences working on grizzly and wolf recovery around Yellowstone National Park.
Here are the details from their announcement . . .
Thursday, March 5, 2015
7:00-8:30 p.m.
Flathead Valley Community College
Arts & Technology Building, Room 13 777 Grandview Dr, Kalispell
Discover how Steve’s innovative work near Yellowstone and his inspiring ideas connect to wildlife and human populations around Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Steve is founder and director of People and Carnivores, a nonprofit organization in southwest Montana that focuses on building a future for large carnivores through cooperation with the people who live with them.
Sponsored by MWA’s Flathead-Kootenai Chapter and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, the Winter Speaker Series is free and open to the public.
The unseasonably warm weather has gotten some area bears up and moving. The Flathead Beacon posted a couple of photos of a grizzly sow and two cubs spotted by a crew working on Going-to-the-Sun Road last week.
Looks like Washington’s Cascade Range may be getting some grizzly bears . . .
A tentative federal proposal to restore grizzly bears in the North Cascades will be explained at public meetings next month.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service are taking public comments for an environmental impact statement before deciding whether to take an active role in restoring the grizzly bear to the North Cascades Ecosystem…
The North Cascades ecosystem encompasses 9,800 square miles in the United States and another 3,800 square miles in British Columbia. The United States portion includes North Cascades National Park, Ross Lake and Lake Chelan national recreation areas plus the Okanogan-Wenatchee and Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie national forests.
Tribes in the region want to retain full protections for grizzly bears in the area around Yellowstone National Park . . .
Leaders of American Indian tribes in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains are signing onto an effort to retain federal protections for grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to decide this year whether it will move to lift protections for the roughly 1,000 grizzlies scientists say live in the Yellowstone region.
The campaign to enlist tribal backing for continued protections — including a prohibition on hunting — is being coordinated in large part by wildlife advocates.
