Grizzlies On the Move, Back to the Wide-Open Prairie
chatnoir
headline:
Grizzlies On the Move, Back to the Wide-Open Prairie
Increasing grizzly activity raises questions about just what
constitutes potential bear habitat in Montana.
By Jason D.B. Kauffman, Guest Writer, 11-19-09
Montanans living along the winding Teton River, well east of the Rocky
Mountain Front were quick to notice their new neighbor this summer. As
early as the beginning of July, ranchers and other landowners along
the prairie began intermittently spotting a solitary grizzly bear
journeying east, away from the mountains.
Residents of the rural grasslands, including Mike Madel, Montana Fish,
Wildlife and Park’s Region 4 Grizzly Bear Management Specialist based
in Choteau, were even more surprised in mid-July when members of a
local ranching family captured photographs of the lone bear on their
land along the Teton north of Fort Benton, ambling through open
prairie nearly 100 miles from the mountains, where Ursus arctos
horribilis is expected these days.
For Madel and other bear managers in the state, the bear’s arrival so
far beyond the range of today’s grizzlies and into historic habitat
was a revelation – and one that would be the first of many throughout
the summer and fall.
Madel, a 23-year veteran of working with grizzlies along the Front,
called 2009 an “unprecedented” year for bears wandering back on to the
prairie, and says the bears’ presence there is only likely to increase
in coming years.
That means an entire population of humans will now have to learn how
to cohabitate with grizzlies. While the plains are historically
grizzly country, for many living there now, the return of the grizzly
is – to put it lightly – a surprise.
Karla Ayers, whose daughter Elizabeth snapped the now-famous shots of
what turned out to be a young male grizzly near Fort Benton, said
ranchers and other residents living on the high plains just aren’t
accustomed to having grizzlies in their midst. She said it’s not like
on the Rocky Mountain Front, where people have been living with bears
now for years.
“Our mindset is just not ready to deal with bears,” she said.
That plains residents aren’t yet ready to live with bears could be
reflected in the increase in human-caused grizzly deaths this year. So
far in 2009, the deaths of 10 of the great bears have been confirmed
in Madel’s region, with eight of those attributed to humans. ...
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