Grizzlies
Rick Smith
Moscow-Pullman Daily News
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Hunter surmises a second grizzly likely visited north central Idaho last year
By Eric Barker, for the Daily News
LEWISTON — North central Idaho appears to have had a second grizzly roaming its wilds last year.
A hunter captured images of a bear at a baiting station last fall on Newsome Creek in the greater Elk City area that experts say likely is a grizzly. The bear has a visible hump and rounded ears. It also appears to have long front claws in one of the photos. All three characteristics are common in grizzly bears, experts say. However, wildlife managers have been unable to say for certain the bear is a grizzly.
The hunter has no doubt.
“It’s definitely a grizzly,” said Jim Alfrey, of Lapwai, who captured the images on his trail camera. “I know for sure it’s a grizzly bear. I’ve shot a lot of black bears. If you look at it compared to the 55-gallon drum, you could put almost three 55-gallon drums inside of it.”
Another grizzly bear spent much of the summer south of Lolo Pass after traveling south from the Cabinet Mountains in Montana. That bear was wearing a satellite tracking collar allowing his movements to be monitored. J.J. Teare, supervisor of the agency’s Clearwater Region at Lewiston said the agency also received photos of a possible grizzly bear in Whitebird Creek and attempted, but failed, to capture that bear. He said officials weren’t able to confirm if the White Bird bear was a grizzly and are listing it is “inconclusive.”
Alfrey captured the images at his bear baiting site below Pilot Nob near Newsome Creek, a tributary to the South Fork of the Clearwater River. In one instance, the bear visited the site about 12 minutes after Alfrey left. When he saw pictures of the bear, he decided to give up the spot. The bear continued to visit the site for about a week, he said. Alfrey later pulled the bait but left the camera. The bear didn’t return after the bait was removed.
“It’s the first one I’ve seen in 30 years of hunting up there. I have a lot of trail cams, and it’s the first one I caught,” he said.
Alfrey shared the pictures with Idaho Fish and Game officials. He said they didn’t seem to be overly interested.
“They never really wanted to know about it, it seemed like to me,” he said. “I haven’t heard from them. They said they were wanting to go up there and take a look, but they never got ahold of me.”
Toby Boudreau, chief of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s Wildlife Bureau at Boise said agency officials are interested and have looked at the pictures and believe the bear is likely a grizzly.
“I would say there is an extremely high likelihood that was a grizzly bear,” he said.
Wayne Kasworm, a grizzly bear biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Libby, Mont., reviewed the pictures and confirmed they likely show a grizzly bear. Kasworm also shared the photos with other biologists, who agreed. He said the bear appears to have a shoulder hump, rounded ears, rounded or dished face, possible silver tippings on its fur and possible long claws on its front feet.
Teare said Idaho Fish and Game visited the site to verify where the pictures were taken. They collected DNA samples from scat there and sent it away to be analyzed. The results haven’t yet come back.
The department declined to publicize the bear’s presence last fall, but Boudreau said it plans to inform hunters of the possibility of a bear in the area before the next bear baiting season. Teare said the agency intends to work with the U.S. Forest Service to make sure the public is aware when they are able to confirm the presence of any grizzly bear.
“We want to document them, and we want to let people know within the area because how they recreate and how they use the landscape is different,” he said. “A grizzly bear is still just a bear. There are lots of folks who live and work and play where there are grizzly bears. There are precautions folks have to take, just to be more bear aware as folks should do with black bears anyway,” he said.
He said those precautions include things like keeping a clean camp and securely storing food and other items that can attract bears.
“If you are out in the woods, taking care of your cooler and garbage is important regardless of if you are worried about a grizzly bear or a black bear,” Teare said.
Fish and game officials don’t have any more information about the bear seen at Newsome Creek. For instance, they don’t know if the bear stayed in the area or was just passing through.
Teare said it’s not uncommon for young male grizzly bears to travel great distances as they seek out new territory. He noted grizzly bear populations in the greater Yellowstone National Park area, northern Continental Divide and Glacier National Park ecosystems and in the Cabinet and Yaak ecosystem in Montana are expanding.
“What we are probably starting to see here, as expected in the Bitterroots, is a lot of these bears tend to be young males that are dispersing,” he said. “They are very mobile.”
Fish and Game wildlife biologists deployed about 800 of their own trail cameras in the Clearwater Region last summer as part of an effort to monitor wolf populations. Teare said none of those cameras captured images of grizzly bears. Teare said anybody who does get a picture of bears they suspect to be grizzlies are encouraged to share them with agency officials.
“We would love to see them and do our best to follow up,” he said. “We would love to get some collars on some bears, and the DNA thing is big for us.”
He said DNA helps biologists know for sure if a particular bear is indeed a grizzly.
The collared grizzly bear that spent much of last summer near Lolo Pass returned to the Cabinet Mountains in Montana, where it has denned for the winter.
Grizzly bears aren’t known to occupy north central Idaho, even though much of it has been identified as prime grizzly bear habitat. The federal government once had a plan to reintroduce grizzly bears into remote areas of what is known as the Bitterroot Ecosystem in north central Idaho and western Montana. That plan fell to political pressure, and wildlife officials opted to instead manage the area for natural recolonization by the bears.
Before last summer, the last known grizzly bear in north central Idaho was in 2007. That bear was mistakenly shot by a hunter, who mistook it for a black bear, in the upper reaches of Kelly Creek. Hunting isn’t allowed on grizzly bears, which are protected in some areas as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
Some environmental groups are suing the U.S. Forest Service for allowing bear baiting on federal forests in Idaho and Montana. The groups, which include Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians and Wilderness Watch, say the practice puts grizzlies at risk of being shot and should be banned.
The Forest Service once regulated bear baiting on land it manages, but stopped in 1992 and instead left it up to state wildlife agencies to decide when and where the practice should be allowed. The groups argue that several grizzly bears have been killed at baiting sites when hunters have mistaken them for black bears.
Rick Smith
5264 N. Fort Yuma Trail
Tucson, AZ 85750
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Rick Smith
Living Snoqualmie (WA)
Monday, January 20, 2020
Grizzly Bear Recovery in Washington State: The Good, the Bad and the ‘Horribilis’
A “verry large and turrible looking animal” was how William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, described the beast they encountered shortly after crossing into the Northern Rockies. The pair had dismissed tales from natives describing a bear larger and more ferocious than the bears they hunted back east. Meriwether Lewis, tasked with scientifically describing what he saw on their journey, compared this animal with those black bears by saying “it is a much more furious and formidable anamal, and will frequently pursue the hunter when wounded.” It was described as “grisley” perhaps for their temperament or for their brown fur that is frequently tipped with white or gold giving them a grizzled appearance. Either way Ursus arctos horribilis, or the Horrible Northern Bear, was named for that frightening encounter by the US naturalist.
Adult female grizzly bears weigh in on average from 290-400 lbs., adult males from 400-790 lbs. with the largest on record being 1500 lbs. They are five to eight feet in length, are capable of running 30 to 40 mph and may live on average 25 years in the wild.
Adult grizzlies are characterized by a pronounced shoulder hump where their massive shoulder scapula and associated muscles attach to the backbone and light-colored front claws measuring 2–4 inches in length. These features give the bear additional strength to dig for roots, tear through logs looking for food and dig out dens in the winter. They also have short rounded ears and a dished in facial profile. Their color ranges from light tan to dark brown.
Grizzlies hibernate for 5–7 months each year depending on location, though not a hardened rule, hibernation is longer further north and on higher elevation slopes such as in Yellowstone, Glacier or the Northern Rockies where snow is deeper and more persistent. While hibernating, female grizzly bears give birth to their young, who then nurse for the remainder of the hibernation period. Before this, she must prepare a den, and eat an immense amount of food as they need much body fat to sustain them during hibernation. As omnivorous carnivores their diets consist of both plants and animals. Much of their diet is comprised of berries, leaves, grasses and nuts.
Due to many factors, grizzlies have one of the lowest reproductive rates of all mammals in North America. They do not achieve sexual maturity until the age of five, cubs are nursed for two years during which time the mother does not mate and typically she will not produce another litter for three or more years. Unlike the more easy-going black bear, mother grizzlies are ferociously protective of their cubs and are able to defend them against much larger male bears. Aside from these females with cubs, grizzlies are solitary animals although they may gather around water sources when salmon spawn.
One of eight sub species of the Brown Bear (Ursus Arctos), the Grizzly once ranged from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean. They were so numerous with an estimated population of 50,000 to 100,000, “early settlers wrote of them grazing like cattle on clover fields.” Now, aside from their Alaskan and Canadian populations, the Grizzly bear occupies only 2% of their historical habitat and number just over 1,000 individuals. Sadly, these bears were almost wiped out from fur trading, hunting and habitat fragmentation.
There are six recovery zones for grizzly bears in the lower 48 states:
- Bitterroot in in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in western Montana and northeastern Idaho.
- Yellowstone in all of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, as well as portions of northwest Wyoming, eastern Idaho, and southwest Montana.
- Northern Continental Divide in Northwestern Montana
- Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak in northwestern Montana and northeastern Idaho
- North Cascades in Washington from the US-Canada border south to Interstate 90
Map courtesy of the US Department of Fish and wildlife
In Washington State, according to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC), as of 2018, after an augmentation program, the Selkirk recovery zone is home to an estimated 55 to 60 grizzly bears. In the North Cascades recovery zone grizzly bear populations are estimated to be fewer than 20 bears with no resident population. The last confirmed sighting in the area was in 1996.
In the fall of 2014, the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife initiated the process of an environmental impact statement to begin the recovery process of grizzly bears to the North Cascades region. The final plan and environmental impact statement were released in the spring of 2017 with a public comment period following. The National Park Service is in the process of reviewing the public comments and preparing the finalized impact statement.
This recovery zone is, according to the IGBC, “one of the largest contiguous blocks of federal land remaining in the lower 48 states, encompassing approximately 9,800 square miles within north central Washington.” 88% is federal land, 7% state land, 3% private land and 1% municipal and county lands. 60% of this land has no motorized vehicle access. This last percentage is important because grizzly bears are only found in large areas of undisturbed land. The home range for one grizzly bear may be up to 600 square miles. The most important part of grizzly bear recovery is to find enough habitat. Roads seem to be one of the biggest threats to their habitat and this area has very few roads.
The Good
What these bears can do for an ecosystem is well documented. A study done by Oregon State University shows that bears are primary small fruit seed dispersers in southeast Alaska. Unlike birds who pluck fruits one or two at a time, bears eat berries in vast quantities and then disperse them through their scat. They help plant diversity through eating, and pooping, as well as through their digging habits. In looking for food they turn over the soil which aerates it and leads to positive changes in plant life.
In addition, by regulating their prey they control population numbers which in turn prevents ungulate diseases and helps healthy herd members thrive. They encourage herds to move along which improves plant diversity by preventing overgrazing. Lastly, these large predators help smaller scavengers survive by providing a food source through carrion.
The Bad
No one would deny that grizzly bears are more aggressive than black bears. In an encounter with humans a black bear will frequently turn and run, but the grizzly is far more offensive than defensive. Even though this bear normally avoids people, its temperament can quickly change if cornered, surprised, or a mother’s cub is endangered. Most human-bear conflict comes from surprising a bear at close range, with cubs or protecting food. Because of this, good bear habitat must have areas that are isolated from development, recreation, logging, mining, farming and ranching.
Ranchers understandably worry about adding another large predator that would look at their livestock as food. There has already been much conflict in the general area regarding the gray wolf, and grizzly bear recovery will likely meet the same protests. The process will be slow moving due to those concerns and the bears own slow reproduction habits. Likely reaching the goal of a self-sustaining population of 200 bears will take a century to achieve.
The ‘Horribilis’
So why save this icon of the American west in our state? What would be so bad about letting it go? To many they are a part of cultural history, to others a vital link in a healthy ecosystem and important to the survival of all the species that call the area home. Still the concerns of all who live and recreate in the area need to be addressed and resolved for recovery to be successful. To let them go without considering all the options would indeed be a horrible thing for our natural world and everything in it.
Thank you to Darrell Smith of Western Wildlife Outreach and Daryl Ratajczak of Wildlife for You for checking my facts.