Cider pressing, gleaning event helps bears and people

PABLO — Bears love fruit for helping them fatten up for winter hibernation, and people grow a lot of it. Ripening apples, plums and even chokecherries pose irresistible attractions that entice hungry bears dangerously close to humans.

The Mission Valley Fruit Gleaning Program is a new community-wide effort to help reduce human-bear conflicts, begun this year by wildlife biologists with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and their partners at the nonprofit People and Carnivores.

The group sponsored a Mission Valley Bear and Apple Cider Festival, held Sept. 18 on the Salish Kootenai College campus. Close to a hundred people dropped by the event to learn about preventing bear/human conflicts and to enjoy making apple cider.

Five old-fashioned apple presses were “pressed” into service, putting out fresh, tangy-sweet cider for hours. Event organizers had the inside scoop on where people could go to pick as many apples as they wanted, so several left and returned with boxes of fruit to press. A local who raises pigs made a trailer available to collect the pomace, or pressed apple pulp, to feed his livestock.

A new Facebook page, “CSKT Fruit Gleaning of the Flathead Reservation,” connects people who want to pick fresh, local fruit with those who have fruit trees needing picked. Currently on the page, folks are offering apples and pears free for the picking, and another is looking for plums, since a bear got theirs.

THE GLEANING program loans out long-handled fruit pickers, heavy boxes and canvas tarps that can be borrowed to collect fruit. The items are available at three locations in the valley: the CSKT Wildlife Office at 406 Sixth Ave. E in Polson; the Ronan Indian Senior Center across U.S. 93 from Dairy Queen; and the Tribal Fitness Center in St. Ignatius. The sites also serve as drop-off areas for excess fruit. Program coordinators will collect it and find it a home, whether with others looking for fruit, food pantries, commercial cider makers or livestock farms.

“We’re trying to make it as easy as we can for people,” CSKT wildlife biologist Payton Adams said. “Most people don’t have these long-handled picking tools, for instance.”

Adams explained how the tarps are useful for quick apple gathering.

“Just lay a tarp out, grab a branch, cover your head and shake it.”

“It really is addressing a community issue,” said Stephanie Barron of the nonprofit People and Carnivores. She and CSKT wildlife biologist Kari Eneas started brainstorming the gleaner project and cider festival nine months ago after Bryce Andrews of People and Carnivores said fruit/bear problems were becoming more and more of an issue. Adams and Kaylie Durlo joined in the planning.

The People and Carnivores organization helps people implement practical ways to prevent carnivore conflicts, such as electric fencing of chicken yards, carcass removal, livestock-guarding dogs and garbage security to protect people, livestock and predators in communities, on ranches and farms, and in the backcountry.

Eneas discussed prevention of bear conflicts throughout the cider pressing event and demonstrated the proper two-handed deployment of bear spray in case of an encounter with a bear that does not run away. Eneas’ master’s degree research at the University of Montana found electric fences around small livestock such as chickens to be effective at reducing grizzly bear depredation.

To list your fruit trees with the fruit gleaning project, or find trees to pick, visit or message the CSKT Fruit Gleaning of the Flathead Reservation page on Facebook. For more information, contact Eneas at kari.eneas@cskt.org or 406-883-2888, ext. 7217.