By Kris Inman EBS CONTRIBUTOR
To some, it seems surprising to see bears walking down the
neighborhood streets of Big Sky. But, when you consider that Big Sky sits within
our wildland ecosystem, surrounded by national forest and designated wilderness,
it shouldn’t be a surprise.
As rapid neighborhood development continues in places where
bears live, bears will continue to move through.
Bears are naturally crepuscular, which means they are most
active at dusk and dawn and remain active throughout the night. Often, a bear
will discover trash in non-bear-resistant trash cans that are brought out the
night before pickup, or very early in the morning. Bears then become accustomed
to walking through neighborhoods to access a consistent food source.
“We get calls when people have to clean up trash strewn
across their streets or driveways, or they see a bear in their trash. That is
when they see bears as a problem,” said Kevin Frey, bear conflict specialist
for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “We set a trap to capture and relocate
these bears to wilder areas, where hopefully, only natural food sources are
available and the cycle of equating people with food can be broken and bears
have a chance to be wild again.”
But bears have an amazing homing ability. In Revelstoke,
British Columbia, biologists found that moved grizzly bears covered an area
eight times greater than wild bears, which results in about 22 percent of bears
returning to their original capture site and getting into conflict a second
time because the attractant, trash, is still there. Some bears that have been
captured and translocated more than 60 miles away from Big Sky have found their
way back.
After enough food rewards from unsecured trash, bears become
food-conditioned and see developed areas or homes as a food source and not a
place to be fearful. Once this happens, conflict specialists call the bears “habituated
bears” and they can become brazened obtaining unnatural foods.
These bold, habituated bears start moving through
neighborhoods in the daytime and look beyond trash. An open window, garage door
or an automatic door at a business or hotel beckons them in. They may find a
bear-resistant trash can and attempt to break into it because they’ve learned its
contents is food. This bold behavior also puts people at risk.
When a bear reaches this point, officials with MT FWP must
make the difficult decision to euthanize the bear.
“The decision to lethally remove a bear is not an easy one,”
Frey said. “We make this decision when a bear poses a risk to human safety, or
we have moved a bear multiple times and it is becoming clear that the bear
cannot change its behavior.”
The good news, however, is that the Big Sky community is
changing its behavior: 70 percent of people use bear-resistant trash cans and
negative interactions are no longer on the rise.
That said, unsecured garbage is still causing numerous
conflicts. To date in 2019, there have been over 41 conflicts requiring
management actions. Six bears have been captured, five more have been stuck in
dumpsters not closed properly, and one bear had to be lethally removed.
To ensure that we see bears in their natural environment
rather than roaming developed areas, make the switch to bear-resistant trash
containers. It will take everyone using a bear-resistant trash can to break the
cycle.
Remember to follow Bernadette Bear on social media @bearsmartbigsky to learn how to make Big Sky’s story a positive one for bears, people and wild places.
Kris Inman is the community partnerships coordinator for
the Wildlife Conservation Society and oversees the Bear Smart Big Sky campaign