Chickens, boneyards entice grizzlies

Chickens continue to be a problem for bear managers in the Flathead Valley, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear specialist Tim Manley told Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem bear managers last week.

Manley said of the 10 bear complaints he’s responded to so far this spring, nearly all of them involved bears getting into chickens, ducks or both. The most effective way to keep bears out of coops and feed is electric fencing or electric wiring over gates and doors.

He showed a comical video of a grizzly bear attempting to get through the door of a coop with an electric screen over it. The bear was shocked, ran away and never came back. He also showed a video of just how well bears catch chickens — pouncing on chickens like they were salmon and swallowing them just as fast.

East of the Divide, FWP bear specialist Mike Madel said the problem this spring has been “boneyards” on ranches — areas where ranchers dump cattle and other livestock. Grizzlies travel miles from the Rocky Mountain Front to eat the dead animals, often getting too close to the ranchers’ homes or barns. FWP has a carcass relocation program, but keeping track of all the boneyards has proved challenging.

Madel also noted that grizzlies continue to move farther and farther from the Front — bears are now outside of Fort Benton, and floaters on the Marias River can expect to see grizzly bear tracks along its banks.

Before European settlement of the West, grizzly bears were a plains animal and roamed as far east as the Dakotas. Now they’re slowly but surely expanding eastward after nearly 100 years of being confined to the mountains.

Madel said bears also have been getting into farmers’ fields. They especially like corn. While the overall damage isn’t that great — deer probably eat more corn than grizzlies — the bears make a bigger mess, Madel said.

On the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, tribal biologist Dan Carney said two grizzlies actually got caught inside the large Dumpster in Babb last year. They couldn’t get out, and Carney had to dart the bears to remove them. He said he’s working on a long-term solution to fix the Dumpster problem in Babb, but there’s not enough funding.

The overall picture for grizzlies is on the upswing, FWP bear biologist Rick Mace said. He’s been monitoring long-term population trends of grizzlies. A comprehensive report on his work could be released in the next month or so, he said, and it will help guide bear management and the delisting process of grizzlies from the Endangered Species Act.

Mace will retire at the end of June with more than 30 years with FWP. He was a given a plaque of recognition at the meeting.