August 24, 1998 Ravalli Republic article siting numerous bear/human encounters By JESSE BLOOM
Three local black bears are out of the trees, but that doesn't mean that all of the animals are back in the woods yet. Or that bear-weary valley residents aren't out of the woods either.
Local game wardens have already trapped and relocated 13 bears this summer, said warden Joe Jaquith. And some of the animals have been wandering right into towns.
On Thursday night, a bear was removed from a tree on Third Street in Hamilton. That same day a bear climbed down from a tree near Stevensville. On Friday, Jaquith trapped a bear that had climbed a tree south of Hamilton.
"We really don't know why bears are down (in the valley), but we speculate that because of a poor (huckle)berry crop, the bears are looking for an alternative food source," said Fish, Wildlife, and Parks information officer Bill Thomas.
Thomas stressed that people who live around bears must take steps to avoid problems. "The thing that's going on here is that the bears will be around and they will be seeking nutritional food sources," Thomas said. "That makes it our responsibility as people to make sure that we aren't habituating bears to human food sources."
There's no reason to worry
incessantly about bears, Thomas said. "Enjoy the bear sighting," he said. 'If the bear is repeatedly in a place where people could be threatened or the bear could be in jeopardy, then we need to know."But Fish, Wildlife, and Parks isn't in the business of tracking the whereabouts of every bear that someone sees, said Thomas. "It doesn't help us to call up and say that a bear just walked by," he said.
Jaquith has been swamped by bear reports in the last few days. He spent much of Thursday trying to get the bear out of the tree on Third Street, and wasn't successful until the crowd dissipated that night.
"It came down the tree after we got the people away," Jaquith said. "We darted it when it was 10 feet up the tree. It climbed back up to 30 feet. Then the drug took effect and the bear kinda got hung up in a notch in the tree."
Once the bear was tranquilized, Steve Wilcox and Jaquith used a Montana Power bucket truck to get it down.
That bear was still in one of Jaquith 's two bear traps Friday morning when he got another call about a bear in a tree south of Hamilton.
Jim Nozell explained that the bear wandered through his yard, and then climbed his cherry tree. An hour later, it climbed down the cherry tree and went up a nearby pear tree. After descending the pear tree, it ate 20 apples from Nozell 's apple tree. It then climbed to the top of a pine tree for a snooze.
The bear was still in the tree when Jaquith arrived to set a bear trap. Nozell said that the bear was full of apples, and so it took nearly an hour to he tempted by the dead chicken in the bear trap.
On Friday afternoon Jaquith was headed out of town to release the two bears. A third bear had been reported at Lake Como, but Jaquith's bear traps were both full so he couldn't do anything about it.
Jaquith said he drives the bears far away from people before releasing them. 'I take them way out to the back country and kick 'em loose," he said. "Most of the bears we take out, we don't see again."
Another bear that had climbed a tree near Stevensville descended of its own free will. Dan Durovey said that the bear wandered off Thursday afternoon. "As soon as everybody got away he climbed down," Durovey said. "No carnage or anything - no dead dogs or kids in his path."
Bears typically do not go into hibernation until around November, but Jaquith said that they usually disappear from sight in mid-September when bear hunting season opens
Companion article in the Ravalli Republic:
Black bears aren't going to disappear from the valley in the next few weeks, said Fish, Wildlife, and Parks information officer Bill Thomas.
"It's typical, normal bear behavior to try to consume as much food as they can before they go into hibernation," Thomas said.
The problem has been exceptionally bad this year, not just in the valley but throughout the area, according to Thomas. A poor huckleberry crop may be one reason for the rash of bear encounters.
If people want to avoid bear encounters, they should take care not to attract the animals, Thomas said. If a bear is successful in obtaining food from people it will be encouraged to continue to forage near houses. Thomas offered several precautions that can minimize the bear problems.