Bear Hunting Allowed to Curb Numbers

As environmentalists and wildlife managers rally to save grizzly bears in the area around Yellowstone National Park, hunters are killing them in northwestern Montana.

That may seem ludicrous, since grizzly bears are found in only a few isolated areas and are officially listed as “threatened” on the federal endangered species list.

Alaska and Montana have the only legal grizzly hunts in the United States, but state and federal wildlife officials say Montana’s limited season might actually help the bears thrive in the wilderness surrounding Glacier National Park and get them off the threatened list there.

Despite criticism of the hunt, Montana officials maintain it is working.

“We feel we have a viable population,” said Ron Marcoux, associate director of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “What we’re trying to arrive at is an accommodation between the needs of the bear and the people that have to live with the bear. Hunting has the advantage of keeping bears wary of people.”

No Quarrel With Hunt

Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his agency had no quarrel with the grizzly hunt as long as it does not endanger the overall population.

“They view hunting as a management tool,” Servheen said of Montana wildlife authorities. “We feel that hunting is adequate, as long as it is used in a very conservative manner. Obviously, we can’t exceed the recovery rate.”

The bears do seem to be thriving in the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem, the mountainous area that stretches from the Canadian border down the spine of the northern Rocky Mountains nearly to Helena.

Nobody knows how many grizzlies live there; that’s one chief focus of state and federal research. But state biologist Arnold Dood, who’s coordinating an environmental impact study on grizzly bears, says computers fed information about bear food supplies, radio collar tracking and human sightings figure that 580 to 813 grizzlies live in the area, including about 200 in Glacier Park, where hunting is prohibited.

Montana’s hunt is a way to thin the number of bears to match the food supplies and to keep them wary of humans in hopes they will avoid both hunters and hikers, say the wildlife experts.

‘Running Out of Zoos’

“We don’t have many places we can put them,” Marcoux said. “No one wants problem bears, and we’re running out of zoos to send them to.”

Earlier this year, Montana wildlife officials asked their counterparts in other states and Canadian provinces whether they wanted any Montana grizzly bears. The answer was a universal “no,” although Alaska, with tongue in cheek, proposed trading their problem wolves for grizzly bears.

Landowners along the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains say the hunt should even be expanded. They report grizzlies coming out of the high country to prey on chickens, sheep and honey.

Ira Perkins, a schoolteacher and rancher at Bynum, is collecting signatures on a petition asking that grizzlies be dropped from the threatened species list, which might allow more extensive hunting.

“The presence of this horrendous and monstrous beast along our streams and around our homes creates an atmosphere of fear for the lives of our children, ourselves and our livestock,” his petition says.

Reduced Limit on Kills

Earlier this year, however, the national Defenders of Wildlife had threatened a lawsuit, until state and federal officials agreed to reduce the number of bears that could be killed--by any human action--to 15, including no more than six females.

The year before, the quota was 17 bears, including seven females.