FWP tells local residents to be aware of bears

The North Central Senior Citizens Center hosted a talk by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Bear Management Specialist Wesley Sarmento Tuesday on how to deal with the increasing presence of grizzly bears in the area safely and prevent encounters with the animals.

Sarmento said the grizzly bear is a protected species at the federal level, but people are still allowed to defend themselves from bears and protect their properties from the animals as long as they don't seriously injure the bears.

Much to his dismay, he said, Montana FWP doesn't have the authority to regulate their population or declare hunts on the animals, but he is in charge of keeping people and their property safe, which is the main focus of the meeting.

If it were up to him, he said, he would declare hunts on the animals to reduce their population in the area to halt their eastern expansion from their recovery area, but that is not his call to make.

Sarmento said Gov. Greg Gianforte has sent a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get the animal delisted, but it hasn't been responded to yet.

He said while not all designated areas for grizzly bear recovery have seen great success, the Northern Continental Divide area has seen an extremely successful recovery of the population since the animals were hunted to near extinction in the area during colonization.

The recovery has been so successful that the bears are now moving out of the area and into areas closer to Havre.

Despite the complications posed by the population still being federally protected, he said, there are ways to protect people and property from the animals legally.

How to deal with an encounter

Sarmento said media often depicts bears as man-eaters who will actively attack humans for food, but this is entirely inaccurate, and it is important to understand that most grizzlies do not cause humans any problem and, while there have been attacks, the last time someone in this ecosystem was killed and eaten by a grizzly bear was over 20 years ago.

He said grizzlies are omnivorous and opportunistic hunters that generally seek to expend as little energy as possible to get food, so humans are not exactly a reliable food source for them, and most attacks happen because someone surprised a grizzly at close range and they got scared, attacking out of fear.

He said the best way to handle these kinds of encounters is to prevent them all together and there are a number of ways to do that.

Traveling in a group when in bear country and making noise while traveling are two big ones.

Sarmento said bears are not confrontational creatures and if they hear a bunch of noise coming their way they will just leave the area to avoid an encounter.

Should someone encounter a bear at close range they should quickly observe its behavior to gauge what they should do.

If the bear sees someone and more or less ignores them, then the reason should just carefully leave the area, without running and not making noise to scare the animal, he said.

If the bear is getting on its hind legs to look it's probably just being curious, but if it's doing that and has its ears back then it's probably feeling threatened for itself or its cubs, and people should be cautious about the bear's next move.

If the bear is grunting and clacking its jaws, that's a good indication that it is very unhappy with the person there and they need to be very wary.

Bears that feel threatened may charge a person, something which is often a bluff on their part, but if a bear starts charging the best thing to do is to deploy bear spray, Sarmento said.

He said bear spray is more effective and safer than fire arms against bears for a number of reasons.

He said bear spray doesn't require tremendous aim like handguns which often need multiple shots to kill a bear.

Sarmento said guns also have a much higher accident rate with people accidentally shooting themselves or someone else during a hostile encounter, and bear spray is the best option.

When deploying bear spray, he said people should aim slightly down, so the cloud doesn't go over the charging bear, and they should fire in two or three second bursts so they don't use the whole can in one shot.

He said people should also fire while the bear is still a ways away because it takes a couple seconds for the spray to work its way into the bear, so firing too late won't be nearly as effective.

Sarmento said the best way to do this is for people to protect themselves without bear spray is to play dead.

The best way to do this, he said, is to drop on their bellies and interlock their fingers, placing their hands over the back of their neck to protect a vital area.

If they have a backpack, he said, keep it on for extra protection.

Playing dead indicates to a bear that the animal in front of them is not a threat and it's an effective way to protect oneself.

However, there is one circumstance in which people should directly fight back, he said.

If a bear is following a person without making any noise this is predatory behavior indicating that the bear sees them as a food source.

This behavior is rare, Sarmento said, but if a bear is doing this and attacks, people should fight back, since bears still aren't keen on fighting for food when they don't need to.

If a bear is trying to get into a person's tent, this is also predatory behavior and people should leave the area as soon as as possible after the bear is driven off.

Protecting property

While the priority of FWP is to protect human life, Sarmento said, grizzly bears can cause serious property damage as well, and while people aren't allowed to kill or injure the bears in defense of property, there are plenty of ways to deal with the animals.

Sarmento said grizzlies have an extremely powerful sense of smell and can detect food from miles away, and that food can range from meat to grain, which can be an issue for agriculture producers and hunters.

He said hunters should be careful with their kills and make noise when approaching them to scare off any bears in the area, and consider using gutless methods to harvest the animal and store the meat high in a tree.

He said if people ever encounter partially buried animals, that is a good indication that a bear is looking to come back and eat the rest of something they found earlier in the day, and people should stay away, as they can be protective of their food.

Sarmento said bears are also drawn to livestock, particularly sheep, chickens and pigs.

He said guard dogs can be effective at scaring off bears, but the silver bullet is electric fences.

He said a bear that gets a good shock going after livestock, or any kind of food for that matter, is not coming back.

"They are lazy animals, so if the food involves pain or something difficult then they can find an easier meal," he said.

He said scare devices also work to ward off bears, but if it is practical, electric fences are the way to go, and if FWP has time, they can build them for producers in need of help.

Sarmento also said they can carry off dead animals, which are a huge attractant for bears.

As for roaming livestock, he said, data also indicates that a big factor in keeping livestock from getting killed by bears is their proximity to trees and brush, where bears typically roam.

Keeping livestock away from these environments when possible, he said, drastically lowers the chances of them being attacked.

Grain and grain spills are also something that will attract bears, and producers can set noise makers and scare devices to deter the animals, which FWP can also help with, he said, but dogs have also proven effective in those cases.

He also said bears love apples, so keeping apple trees picked and cleaning apples from the ground is a good habit.

Hazing a bear with a vehicle also can work to get them away from people's property but Sarmento cautioned that people should be careful to keep themselves safe while doing this, giving the bear an escape route and not going overboard and injuring them.

He said if a bear breaks into a building, they can also set up bear-proof doors, he said.

Grizzlies vs. black bears

During the talk he also showed ways to differentiate between black bears and grizzly bears, which he said can be tricky.

Contrary to their names black bear's can be brown in color, and it's not entirely uncommon for grizzly bears to have black fur, so color is actually pretty unreliable as an identifier.

He said grizzly bears tend to have large shoulder humps due to having more muscular arms, and they also have rounded ears while black bears' ears tend to be more pointed.

However, these traits vary from bear to bear within both species, so even though they are better indicators than color, there is still enough variation that mistaking one for the other is easy.

The one dead giveaway, he said, that is the most reliable way to tell them apart, is the claws, he said.

Black bears spend a lot of their time in trees so their claws are shorter and more hook-like, which makes for better climbing. Grizzly bears, on the other hand have long, shovel-like claws for digging, which is how they find much of their food.