Hungry bears seek food in Big Sky’s garbage

By Fischer Genau EDITORIAL INTERN

Hungry bears emerging from hibernation around Big Sky are finding food in a less-than-ideal place: people’s trash. Despite a citywide mandate for bear-resistant trash cans, heightened bear activity this spring after a light winter has many citizens encountering bears in their neighborhoods and rooting around in their garbage.

“There’s been a larger uptick this year for sure,” said Sam Luedtke, the Big Sky Owners Association compliance officer. “A lot more disturbed garbage cans and such.”

The BSOA receives news of bear sightings and bears getting into trash cans, and Luedtke himself had a bear wander into his garage and had to chase it off with an airhorn. Recently bears have scattered food scraps from restaurants behind the Westfork Meadows shopping area, and Luedtke said grizzlies, rather than black bears which are the usual culprits, have been spotted raiding trash cans near the Beaver Creek drainage and knocking over cans at the Exxon gas station off of U.S. Highway 191.

In 2014, the BSOA mandated the use of bear-resistant trash cans, and a decade later almost all of the homes within their jurisdiction use these specially designed containers to deter bears from seeking food in urban areas.

“When we have enough [bear-resistant cans] out on the landscape, they really are a big help with reducing conflicts and improving safety for residents, as well as fostering healthy behavior for the bears themselves,” said Morgan Jacobsen, information and education manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

But if these trash cans are used improperly, or if other attractants are left out in the open, bears will still come to urban areas in search of food. Bird feeders that aren’t 10 feet off the ground and four feet away from adjacent structures are highly desirable food sources, and if trash cans are left out overnight, or are overflowing so they can’t close properly, bears can use their keen sense of smell to sniff out vulnerable eatables.

“Bears up here definitely know what day trash day is,” said Emma Lawler, the BSOA’s programs and project manager.

Sometimes even a properly secured container is no match for a hungry black bear. Lawler got a call from a citizen who had a bear drag their bear-resistant trash can into the woods and jump on it until it broke through to its contents.

FWP’s Jacobsen says that the cans are bear-resistant, not bear-proof, and that citizens can and should take other precautions to prevent late night garbage raids. FWP asks that people ensure their cans remain closed, secured and kept in a protected location, preferably in a building or garage. FWP also recommends Big Sky residents set out their cans the morning of collection and not the day before, because bears are most active at night, and asks that they put bird feeders away March through December.

“The biggest thing is keeping trash confined until the last second,” Luedtke said. “Putting it out on trash day an hour before your trash guy comes up would be perfect.”

As Big Sky continues to grow, bears and humans are inevitably coming into closer contact with one another. Big Sky’s population increased by over 50% between 2010 and 2020, according to US Census reports, and Montana’s bear population has grown as well. 

“It’s getting worse and worse because we have more and more people coming here that just don’t understand the issue,” Luedtke said.

The BSOA encourages anyone who sees a non-bear-resistant trash can to report it to them. Republic Services, one of Big Sky’s main trash collectors, provides Kodiak bear-resistant trash cans upon request from customers, and L&L Site Services, another trash collector in the area, exclusively supplies bear-resistant cans.

For their part, FWP requests that anyone who sees bears looking for food in residential areas report it to them immediately.

“If we can catch it early enough and relocate the bear before they become food conditioned and habituated, oftentimes that can be enough to correct the problem,” Jacobsen said. “It’s when people don’t report those issues, and then the bear continues to seek and to find food, when the bear becomes habituated, we’re not able to correct the problem, and the bear has to be euthanized.”

Each year, FWP has to relocate or euthanize several bears in Big Sky, like the female grizzly who was euthanized last August after being conditioned to seek unnatural food sources. 

“If you call into the officials, it can prevent someone from getting hurt, and may save the bear’s life too,” Luedtke said.

FWP provides complete Bear Aware guidelines on their website for how to foster healthy relations with our wild, furry neighbors.

“Montana is bear country,” Jacobsen said. “Part of living in bear country comes with a measure of responsibility on our part to reduce conflicts, to foster healthy behavior for the bears, and that in turn helps keep things safer where we live. It’s on all of us to do that.”