Updates on Montana FWP black bear study presented at Bear Fair

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Black Bear Monitoring Biologist Colby Anton presented an ongoing statewide black bear population study during Swan Valley Resources’ Bear Fair at Swan River Community Hall on Saturday. The project aims to estimate the overall density and abundance of black bears across the state.  

“As a biologist, one of the most common questions we get is just how many animals there are. It seems to be one of the most common and popular questions to ask us and oftentimes we don’t really have an answer for that question,” Anton said.  

Building off a 2023 Blackfoot River drainage study, this year researchers are gathering data in bear management unit 103 west of Kalispell. They have placed 75 barbed wire hair corrals in the area, which six technicians monitor biweekly. The hair-collecting traps consist of a ring of barbed wire strung around tree trunks so that it hangs about 20 inches off the ground. In the center, a pile of wood soaked in fermented cow or pig blood lures the bears in. Above, a variable plastic jug of stinky stuff -- blueberry pie scent, smoky bacon scent, anise, or most-loved by bears, fermented fish.  

“Even 450-pound bears will go under that wire 90% of the time,” Anton said, demonstrating how low off the ground it sits by placing a hand below his knee. “It doesn’t really make any sense to me, I don’t understand why, but it really works, this is a tried-and-true kind of methodology across all grizzly and black bear ways of monitoring populations.” 

Hair is collected from the barbs and sent in for DNA sampling. To avoid sending in two samples from the same bear, cameras are placed around the site to determine where each bear entered and exited the barbed wire. Each sample costs $60 to test and can take over a year to see results.  

Last year’s project saw 64 grizzly samples, which will be used to ID new individuals, and 894 black bear samples. Eighty-five percent of corrals produced black bear hair. 

A concurrent FWP project has placed 800 trail cameras to determine density and abundance of elk, black bears and mule deer simultaneously. Biologists intend to compare the sampling types’ cost-and-benefit effectiveness as well as the data results collected from them.  

There are also ongoing efforts to collar black bears, which can aid in habitat selection modeling as well as determine cause of death. While bears often die of natural causes, FWP also has interest in quantifying how many are hit by cars, euthanized due to human conflict and hunted. The plan is to collar 30 bears this year, with around 50 collars to work with.  

“That’s our goal over the next eight years is to start to get full coverage of the entire state to start to understand both survival differences across the state and those habitat selection differences,” Anton said. 

Next year the project will move to the Little Belt Mountains, then Gravelly and Tobacco Root ranges, then on to Southeastern Montana, testing black bear density and abundance in each area.  

All this data will allow scientists to create a population model that can be used to help determine harvest prescriptions, for example, allowing them to test what allowing a hunt on 10% of female black bears would mean for the long-term outlook of a population. With this data, they can more accurately recommend hunt quotas to the Wildlife Commission.  

Anton showed a data chart showing a sharp increase in out-of-state black bear hunters in recent years. 

“One of the primary reasons why we’re seeing this – I don’t have any data to back this up, but after talking to a bunch of people this kind of matches – there’s been an increase in podcasts and TV shows related to hunting and they really ramp up the rhetoric around Montana, specifically black bear hunting. We think that’s really bringing in a lot of out-of-state hunters trying to come in here especially during the spring season,” Anton said.  

He explained that some other states only allow black bear hunting for a two-week window during their general rifle season, and techniques are more often baited hunts than the spot-and-stalk technique used throughout Montana. Montana has roughly a two-month season for black bears, including a spring hunt.  

Hunters also provide essential data to FWP for population monitoring. While hunters aren’t asked to call in the latitude and longitude of their kill, it can be valuable information for biologists.  

“So if anybody’s a bear hunter, and you guys harvest a bear, please take the lat-long when you get your bear,” Anton said.  

As data from the 2023 study is collected back from labs, Anton expected a report to be released by the end of 2024.  

Swan Valley Bear Resources offers a multitude of programs to help people living in bear country keep humans safe and bears wild. More information can be found at www.swanvalleyconnections.org/swan-valley-bear-resources.