Second grizzly moved to Cabinets

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

Another female grizzly bear was transplanted to the Cabinet Mountains on Thursday, with hopes of augmenting that area's imperiled bear population.

Last fall, state and federal wildlife officials transplanted a bear to the Cabinets for the first time in 15 years.

With recent evidence that transferring bears will lead to successful reproduction, the state intends to be more aggressive with its augmentation program.

"We would like to do two this year," said Jim Williams, regional wildlife manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "But we might not catch another female the entire summer that meets the criteria. We are being very selective."

The state is only willing to transfer young female bears that have no history of conflicts with people. In Thursday's case, it was a "clean bear" no older than 3 that was trapped on the Swan Mountain Range west of Hungry Horse Reservoir as part of population trend monitoring research.

Bear management specialist Erik Wenum used a satellite phone to notify Williams, prompting a consultation with other officials that led to the decision to move the bear.

Under the supervision of Wayne Kasworm, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bear biologist, and Jerry Brown, a state wildlife biologist, the 140-pound bear was fitted with a radio collar and hauled to the Little Spar Lake area in the West Cabinet Mountains.

It was released there Thursday night.

The release was carried out without a hitch in the same area where last fall's release occurred, Brown said.

Kasworm flew over the area Friday and located the radio collar's signal not far from the release site, Brown said.

The bear that was transplanted last year, meanwhile, is "doing great," Brown said. "She's staying up pretty much in high basins. She's been as far south as Sawtooth Mountain, she's been in the Lightning Creek area in Idaho and as far north as Callahan Creek."

That's pretty much the full range of the West Cabinet Mountains. "She's really learning that area," Brown said.

The West Cabinets were chosen for the releases because there is rich bear habitat that should discourage the transplanted bears from attempting to return to the areas where they were captured, Williams said.

And if they tried, they would run into the larger Cabinet Mountain Wilderness to the east, where they would encounter more prime habitat.

The Fish and Wildlife Service officially estimates there are only 15 grizzly bears in the Cabinet Mountains and another 20 to 30 bears in the Yaak region in the extreme northwest corner of the state.

Augmentation is now viewed by state and federal officials as the best immediate means of maintaining and eventually increasing the populations.

Lincoln County Commissioner John Konzen, who went along for Thursday's release, said there is growing local acceptance of the augmentation program.

"I think people have come to realize that if they don't augment the population, they will never be delisted," he said, referring to the grizzly's protection under the Endangered Species Act.

But there are questions among locals, he said, about how many bears will constitute a "recovered" population and how many bears the Cabinet-Yaak recovery area can biologically support.

They wonder, Konzen said, "how many bears were here 100 years ago."

Augmentation was a controversial topic when four grizzly bears were first transplanted to the region from British Columbia between 1990 and 1994. That's partly because of resentment that had developed over increasing forest restrictions resulting from the grizzly bear's protected status, Konzen said.

There also was considerable uncertainty about whether transplanted bears could survive and reproduce in their new locations.

But just this year, a genetic analysis of bear hair collected over a three-year period confirmed that one of the Canadian bears that was transplanted in 1992 not only had cubs, but also that her cubs reproduced.

That revelation bolstered the position of augmentation advocates. "It confirms that augmentation works," declared Chris Servheen, the federal government's grizzly bear recovery coordinator.

The young female that was moved Thursday, however, will not have cubs until she is at least 6 years old.

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