In late May there was a meeting in Valier, Montana. Over 200 people showed up to talk about bears, both black and grizzly, coming onto their old stomping grounds on the Montana prairies.
We know that the Montana prairie was the first home to bears in this country from the notes of explorers like Lewis and Clark who reported they had bear troubles all through Montana.
Now those bears reside for the most part in the Rocky Mountain Front from the Rattlesnake wilderness area, to the Bob Marshall, Big Bear, Scapegoat, Glacier and Waterton Parks as well as the Swan and Whitefish Ranges.
There are some 1000 grizzlies living in that area which is too many to support them. There are more black bear residing in the same area.
In Glacier National Park, often experts cite the number of grizzlies as being below 500. That may well be but there are many more than that outside of Glacier's boundaries.
This year bears coming out from the Rocky Mountain front have killed to date around 22 cattle as opposed to 48 cattle and sheep killed by bears all last year.
Experts have said that mother grizzlies, sensing too many bears living in one area, have taught their young males to go back to their first habitat where they will have more room to range.
Those, mostly young males go down the waterways out of the front and into prairies that have not seen them for a century or more.
Some say that first come the black bears, then the grizzlies come after.
Dana Darlington, who ranches on the Missouri, is concerned about bears.
"Having not grown up with bears on my ranch, I don't understand their behavior," said Darlington.
Darlington said that in the last five years there have been more and more black bear sightings between the Bear Paw Mountains and the Missouri River. Those black bears share the same habitat with a huge elk herd in that area as well.
What are the answers to the increasing bear problem in the Big Sandy area?
Dana Darlington shared this with "The Mountaineer".
"It is kind of like everything else, set a number of each species that they want then they want more. Take bison. In Yellowstone that optimum number was 3000. Now there are 5000 and there is no more room for them," said Darlington. "That is why we have
See Page 3: Bears National Parks. If you want to see bears go look at them there. And I would advocate a hunting season for grizzlies as well.
Darlington might have an answer there. First the grizzly bears would have to be delisted from the endangered species list. Then a hunting season might be a good thing.
Years ago when there was hunting in what is now Glacier National Park, few grizzlies were shot but most all, and bears are very smart animals, the bears got idea that guns and shots fired at them were dangerous, so they stayed away from humans as much as possible. That caused in the first thirty or forty years of Glacier being a National Park, not a single recorded encounter between bears and humans. Then after the bears became unafraid of humans, troubles with humans vs. bears began. Today Glacier has a good policy in place to prevent encounters and there have been only minor incidents for some time. However, there is no policy for keeping bears in the National Park where they belong.
Things are only going to get worse out on the Montana prairies until there is an answer to this problem.
Meanwhile when hunting, fishing and hiking this area of Montana, arm yourself with bear spray. It just might save your life.
