Griz death toll reaches 31

A total of 31 grizzly bears have died or been removed from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem this year, prompting a committee of land and wildlife managers to take steps toward curbing the problem.

"It's huge," Flathead Forest Supervisor Cathy Barbouletos said. "The question is why. And what can we do about it?"

Chris Servheen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly bear recovery coordinator, said most of the deaths were attributed to management actions that resulted from conflicts near human dwellings.

Most of the deaths occurred on private land, rather than public land within the 6-million-acre recovery area that includes the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Glacier National Park and surrounding public lands.

"We have to go back to 1974 to see as many mortalities as we had this year," Servheen said. "It's been 30 years."

In recent years, the highest number of human-caused mortalities was 19, recorded in 1998 and 2000.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the story, he said, is that 18 of the 31 bears were females, considered immensely valuable in the effort to recover a population that is listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

Servheen provided a breakdown of the mortality statistics at a meeting in Kalispell on Wednesday of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bear subcommittee.

Thirteen of the bears were killed or removed to indefinite captivity for management reasons; 10 are believed to have been illegally killed.

Some 17 mortalities occurred on private lands; 26 occurred near "roaded rural" areas while five were near Forest Service roaded lands.

And 13 mortalities were tied to repeated conflicts near buildings where food attractants were present.

"Those are the reasons bears die," Servheen said.

Other factors obviously played a part.

The overall dynamics of increased bear sightings and increasing development on the fringes of the ecosystem also have to be considered, Servheen said.

But this year, the most notable factor was probably a collapse in natural foods such as huckleberries. The food failure likely put females with cubs in "physiological stress" that led them to areas populated by humans.

Perhaps the worst example was a female grizzly with two female cubs captured after repeated conflicts near a home in the Pinkham Creek drainage south of Libby. The bears were relocated to the Middle Fork Flathead drainage, and soon after they wandered into East Glacier and the jurisdiction of Dan Carney, the bear specialist for the Blackfeet tribe.

"Dan Carney spent many nights trying to keep them out of town and out of garbage, but to no avail," Servheen said. "He inherited the problem."

The bears were destroyed.

For many bears, "the road to destruction starts in another place," Servheen said.

This year's loss of bears continues a trend of mortalities that exceed recovery standards for the ecosystem. The six-year average is 19.5 bears per year, with 8.5 of them females.

The ecosystem requires a minimum population of 708 grizzly bears to overcome that level of female mortality, Servheen said.

The population's size has long been a question, and it won't be answered until a DNA-based population study is complete in two years.

Members of the subcommittee were clearly concerned that if the six-year mortality trend continues, it is likely that the population will be demonstrably shrinking.

Barbouletos, who chairs the subcommittee, suggested an effort to establish a "demonstration community" to serve as a model for practices that discourage bears from approaching.

She said the idea is to "hit it hard with everything" ranging from bearproof garbage containers to complete educational efforts to encourage property owners to secure bear attractants.

Mack Long, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks supervisor in Missoula, suggested the Condon area as a possibility, largely because of efforts that got under way last summer.

The Swan Ecosystem Center led the way in raising money to buy bear-resistant trash containers for Swan Valley lodges, restaurants and schools.

Subcommittee members agreed to pursue up to $10,000 for the effort from the larger Interagency Grizzly Bear Management Committee, a group of land and wildlife managers that oversees all grizzly bear management in the Northern Rockies and Northwest.

More rigorous law enforcement and prosecution for poachers also were discussed.

Brian Peck, representing the Great Bear Foundation, urged the committee to push for more aggressive enforcement of a state law aimed at discouraging people from attracting bears to their property.

That law, he contends, is worthless if it is not enforced "fairly, firmly and consistently" against people who leave out attractants that repeatedly bring grizzly bears to their property.

"Part of the problem is that the law enforcement effort has been low key," he said, adding that citations should be well-publicized.

Barbouletos and others on the committee noted that efforts to pursue grizzly bear poaching investigations have been ramped up recently.

"We can't talk about those investigations, but we do have an accelerated law enforcement program right now," she said.

Rick Mace, a state research biologist who specializes in bears, said "state and federal wardens are working together like they never have been before" on grizzly bear poaching cases.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com