Bear family takes refuge in pine tree
A black bear cub hangs from a limb of a tree as he and his family take refuge in a large pine on the property of Tom and Pam Gilbert on Sunday morning on Sanctuary Farm Lane northwest of Kalispell.
A mother black bear and two of her four cubs are visible in the upper branches of a pine tree in Tom and Pam Gilbert's front yard on Sunday morning northwest of Kalispell.
Pam Gilbert and her daughter Rebecca, 10, move around the trees in their front yard on Sunday morning looking for a different perspective of the five black bears who have taken refuge there.
A black bear and her four cubs spent Sunday up a pine tree northwest of Kalispell on Sanctuary Farm Lane.
Tom and Pam Gilbert were first alerted to the bears' presence around 1:20 a.m. when their dogs started barking, Pam Gilbert said. When she went outside to check on them, she saw a large bear dragging bags of trash off into the woods by the family's home off Farm to Market Road.
Gilbert called 911 and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to report the bear. The agency brought a bear trap to the house, and the family went back to sleep.
In the morning they quickly realized that not only was the bear still there - now up in the tree - but that it was a mother bear with four cubs.
As of nightfall Sunday, the bears were still in the tree, but a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman expected them to come down during the night, Pam Gilbert said.
In the meantime, the family of bears provided the human family an unexpected opportunity.
"We have eight children that we home school," Pam Gilbert said. "This has been a science class in action for us."