Group in southwest Montana aims to reduce grizzly conflicts

Duncan Adams, Montana Standard

ENNIS, Montana (The Montana Standard) — Grizzly carnivore buffs and ranchers successful nan Madison Valley stock astatine slightest 1 extremity — conserving nan wide-open scenery required by some nan bruins and nan ranchers to thrive.

Grizzlies proceed to disperse from nan Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, a reality recognized years agone by nan Madison Valley Ranchlands Group. A crippled camera precocious captured an image of a sub-adult grizzly successful nan Tobacco Roots westbound of McAllister.

Now, nan ranchlands group hopes backing designed to trim grizzly conflicts will boost efforts already underway to facilitate co-existing pinch nan bears.

That money could thief salary for electrified mats placed crossed gross openings to discourage grizzly recreation into conflict zones and prevention ranchers from having to unfastened and adjacent gates a twelve times a day. The backing besides could thief deploy five-wire electrical fences, salary for scope riders and support ongoing carrier of cattle and calf carcasses from pastures to compost star facilities.

For a time, nan Madison Valley Ranchlands Group helped money a scope rider to show livestock herds and support an oculus connected predators, including some grizzlies and wolves. That could hap again.

John Crumley, president of nan ranchlands group, said nan scope rider programme was very successful.

The extremity is co-existence among cattle producers and different Madison Valley landowners pinch carnivores.

Linda Owens, task head for nan Madison Valley Ranchlands Group, said preventing conflict pinch grizzlies benefits nan bears, nan ranchers whom she said are an integral portion of nan Madison Valley scenery and efforts to sphere unfastened abstraction arsenic improvement pressures increase.

The U.S. Department of Interior and nan National Fish and Wildlife Foundation person awarded astir $5 cardinal to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks to support Montana cultivation producers’ efforts to forestall grizzly carnivore conflicts.

An further $6 cardinal to $7 cardinal will beryllium delivered to Montana done nan Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program assistance awarded to nan Heart of nan Rockies Initiative, a nonprofit based successful Missoula.

The Madison Valley Ranchlands Group will person immoderate portion of that funding, arsenic will different landowner-led collaborative groups that activity to forestall conflicts betwixt wildlife and livestock.

On Tuesday morning, nan Heart of nan Rockies Initiative and nan ranchlands group, pinch formation support from EcoFlight, co-hosted an arena astatine nan Ennis-Big Sky Airport meant to thief dispersed nan connection astir non-lethal strategies and strategies designed to trim specified conflicts successful nan region.

EcoFlight aviator Gary Kraft provided 2 flights successful a Cessna T210M, offering reporters views from 7,500 feet of nan Madison Valley, nan Madison Range, nan Norris Hill, nan Tobacco Roots, nan Gravelly Range and communities on nan formation path.

EcoFlight says it uses mini craft “to supply nan aerial position to amended and advocator for our remaining wildlands, watersheds and culturally important landscapes.”

Levi Chandler, head for nan Valley Garden Ranch adjacent McAllister, provided narration for nan first flight. He said nan ranch he manages has had much problems to day pinch wolves than bears.

Grizzly bears roam nan scenery equipped pinch a singular consciousness of smell.

“A bear’s consciousness of smell is 7 times amended than a bloodhound’s and 2,100 times amended than [a human’s],” according to nan National Park Service.

Dead cows, calves and different livestock tin beryllium a premier attractant for grizzlies, luring them to cultivated and human-inhabited landscapes wherever nan bears are not welcome.

The Madison Valley Ranchlands Group provides star removal and a star compost program.

The Blackfoot Challenge, nan Big Hole Watershed Committee and different landowner-led groups successful Montana person implemented measures successful caller years to effort to trim conflicts pinch grizzly bears.

Jamie Jonkel, a carnivore guidance master pinch Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, has worked for years pinch members of nan Blackfoot Challenge, nan Natural Resources Conservation Service, nan U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others to effort to minimize conflicts pinch bears dispersing into nan Blackfoot River Watershed from nan Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.

Jonkel said grizzlies encountering electrified mats and electrical fences person a jolt they don’t for illustration and subordinate it pinch nan tract wherever it happened. Former FWP workfellow Tim Manley, on pinch Brady Stone, who has ties to nan Blackfoot Challenge, helped creation aliases refine nan mats.

Jonkel said ongoing invention could thief output different non-lethal methods for managing bears.

“It’s evolving, evolving fast,” he said.

The Blackfoot Challenge has been a leader among landowner-led groups successful Montana moving successful collaboration connected large-scale scenery challenges.

Owens said nan Madison Valley Ranchlands Group has astir 300 members, including landowners who are not progressive successful agriculture. She acknowledged that opinions astir grizzlies and wolves alteration among nan members.

But learning to co-exist seems for illustration a worthwhile goal, she said, and 1 that will beryllium basal sloppy of whether grizzly bears clasp aliases suffer Endangered Species Act protections arsenic a threatened species.

“Bears and wolves are fundamentally a nationalist resource,” Owens said. “If group emotion them, they should measurement up and thief support them connected nan landscape.”

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