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Stewardship Activities For Grizzly Bear Conservation

Imagine a silver-tipped grizzly bear, master of his domain, roaming free along the wild, wind-swept edge of the Bob Marshall wilderness. Now imagine a mud-spattered pickup truck, victim of the terrain, bouncing slowly over a two-track road, in its bed a semi-bloated, fully deceased cow about to be unceremoniously dumped on the prairie.

Contrasting visions of the majestic and the mundane -- how and where on earth could these visions be connected? In a word, stewardship; at a place, the Conservancy’s Pine Butte Swamp Preserve.

The visions represent the two sides of the “carcass relocation program,” a cooperative effort spearheaded by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks with participation by the Conservancy and ranchers in the Choteau area. The less-than-glamorous stewardship action here involves moving dead cattle from ranches to remote foothill locations, where the carcasses will be discovered and fed upon by grizzly bears.

Rocky Mountain Front senior program director Dave Carr and stewardship director Dave Hanna know well the heavy lifting (and sometimes heavy sniffing) involved in the transport of deceased bovines. But the work is important and serves several purposes, all aimed at helping secure the future of the grizzly bear population of the Rocky Mountain Front. Before permanent settlement of the region, winter-killed buffalo provided a critical source of protein for hungry grizzlies emerging from their winter dens. Although the buffalo are gone, the bears’ need for protein remains.

“If the grizzlies can’t find what they need near the mountains, we know from past experience that they may move down the stream channels toward areas occupied by people. That’s where the trouble can start,” says Carr, explaining that when bears get to ranches the lure of cattle feed, carcasses and sometimes live cattle and sheep are tough to resist. Wildlife managers are then forced to remove or relocate the bears, according to interagency management guidelines. The result is fewer bears in the ecosystem.

“The carcass relocation program has proven generally successful in keeping bears in the foothills and away from the settled areas,” Carr notes. “And we’ve had great cooperation from many area ranchers.”

The carcass relocation program is one of the ways the Conservancy manages Pine Butte Swamp Preserve for the good of the grizzly. People management is another key component of our stewardship effort.

Management for the bears' security

Major portions of the preserve are off limits because of the need to provide secure feeding and resting areas for grizzlies. Pine Butte grizzlies are shy animals. Human use of areas, including use for management purposes, can drive bears away. To provide needed security, the entire swamp (a prime grizzly foraging area) is closed to entry, and guided tours to the top of Pine Butte itself are limited to about once a week. Only the Bud Guthrie Memorial Trail, located in the foothills west of Pine Butte and away from its apron of wetlands, is open for public hiking.