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In Montana's Blackfoot Valley, ranchers learn to live with grizzlies |
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TWO CREEK RANCH, OVANDO, Mont. — When grizzly bears showed up on this
sprawling ranch in the Blackfoot Valley in the 1990s, ranch manager
Wayne Slaght was not happy. The new arrivals took down two calves, and
several more over the next few years.
But now, almost a decade later, Slaght is no longer all that worried
about grizzlies. An electric fence keeps the bears off the range, and
under a local program any carcasses are removed to prevent the bears
from becoming habituated to eating cattle.
"Living with the dang bears is a little awkward, but we're
learning to deal with it," Slaght said, standing next to the electric
fence.
Since the fence went up, Slaght is seeing less of grizzlies.
"The last few years, they haven't been around as much — this electric
fence has helped a lot," he said.
The electric fence and carcass removal is courtesy of the
Blackfoot Challenge, a local collaborative group devoted to preserving
landscape and rural lifestyles. The group began a grizzly conservation
program a few years ago to reduce conflicts between the bears, which
are protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and
humans.
"If the challenge wasn't here, and we weren't talking to
people, it would be a disaster," Slaght said. "We'd all be in jail or
something."
So far, the Blackfoot Challenge has put up 42,000 feet of
electronic fencing in the Blackfoot River Valley, and has removed
thousands of carcasses. The effort appears to be paying off: Conflicts
have dropped from a high of 77 in 2003 to 7 last year, said Seth
Wilson, a wildlife biologist and bear researcher who serves on the
Blackfoot Challenge's wildlife committee. Some of the decline could be
due to the removal of "problem" bears in 2003, he noted.
According to a recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey,
about 30 bears now roam the Blackfoot Valley. Future surveys will show
whether the bear population is increasing or decreasing, Wilson said
"This is incredibly good grizzly habitat," he said.
If the population is on the rise, and more bears are wandering
into lower elevations, where most of the human population is, it will
become even more important to reduce conflicts between bears and
people, he added.
But the biggest challenge may be still to come. Wolves have begun to colonize the area, and many ranchers are worried.
"That's a whole different cat," Slaght said. "Wolves are just killers."
Wilson said he is unsure how the challenge will go about trying
to help the community live with wolves. "There aren't many examples of
people coexisting with wolves," Wilson said. "How to coexist with them?
I don't know."
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