October 30, 1999 Missoulian article by Michael Jamison: Latest Grizzly in Flathead is a cereal criminal. The bear facts: We're leaving food where it attracts trouble. [Couldn't it be just as logically argued environmentalists are putting bears and people in harms way?]
The Flathead's season of the grizzly continued this week, with yet another of the big bears plucked from a Whitefish neighborhood.
Since the beginning of autumn, a small handful of grizzlies has been rummaging about the urban streets of Whitefish, digging meals from garbage cans and dog bowls between nights spent raiding local orchards laden with fall fruit. The latest bothersome bear was a 12-year-old male, captured Wednesday just south of town. The 325-pound grizzly had been roaming not far from front doors, growing fat on late-season apples.
CAG Comment
This is a reoccurring problem with bears along the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains. A poor year comes along for food in the Bob Marshal and Glacier National Park and the grizzly, having acquired the habit of eating, and not living in its natural habitat, comes into lower elevation populated areas looking food.
The Fish & Wildlife Service deplores the fact there are apples, dog food, horse pellets, garbage, sack lunches, restaurants, houses, schools, hospitals, hotels, nightclubs, people, horses, cows, dogs, cats, goats, sheep, llamas, the list goes on and on, where the great bear will potentially get into trouble doing what comes naturally -- fattening up for the winter's hibernation.
When it is perceived a short food year is in the making (and this should be possible by the end of July) the Wildlife Services should start making contingency plans involving "road kills", the Air Force, the Montana State Fish and Wildlife Service, Montana Hiway Department, and anyone else that may have a 'dog in the fight'.
Dumb idea, Huh?
Not any dumber than the idea of introducing grizzly bears into the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Wildernesses where the same problem will exist on a given year -- not enough food! -- all the way from Stanley ID, to Missoula, MT and beyond.
Doesn't make any sense does it. This is a tragedy just waiting to happen.
We must stop the exploitation of grizzly bears for purposes that are not being made fully known to the public. Kathleen Marquardt pointed out years ago what the agenda is.
End CAG Comment
The bear, which had never before been captured, will be released in the Whitefish Range this weekend.
Three other grizzlies that have roamed Whitefish streets this season have been relocated in the same general area, and some have returned only to be relocated again and again.
Another grizzly this one a 620-pound male estimated at between 12 and 15 years old was captured Tuesday just east of the Flathead Valley. The bear had broken into a cache of grain in the Spotted Bear area near the head of Hungry Horse Reservoir. In addition to its cereal crimes, the bear is a suspect in a situation involving a broken window and punctured tire on a horse trailer.
Like the latest Whitefish bear, this was the grizzly's first encounter with a culvert trap.
Both bears were fitted with radio collars Thursday, and because of their clean criminal histories, both were deemed good candidates for release and eventual rehabilitation. Bear managers continue to scramble across back yards and orchards and Dumpsters throughout the Flathead, trying to keep up with the black and grizzly bears intent on finding free fat before winter. The biggest problem, they say, is the human side of the human-bear conflict.
According to bear managers, most of the problem bears they handle were coaxed into residential neighborhoods by food sources people failed to lock up. Garbage cans left overnight for pick-up, dog bowls left out, deer carcasses left to age in the cool air, birdseed left for feathered friends and grain spilled to bring in wildlife are but a few of the problem food sources, they said.
Wildlife managers from throughout the region are appealing to residents to secure all food sources, to limit bird and wildlife feeding, and to make sure all fall fruit is plucked as soon as it is ripe. Only by removing the attraction, they said, can they remove the trouble and possible danger of having bears roaming populated neighborhoods like those along the shores of Whitefish Lake.