A few black bears are still out and about in Missoula's upper Rattlesnake and Grant Creek neighborhoods, and a bear scientist says they may stay that way as long as they have easy access to food.
Bears in the northern Rockies are generally denned up by mid-December, but when they get the chance to fatten up on garbage and dog food, they often remain on the prowl rather than settling in for a long winter's nap, said Jamie Jonkel, a wildlife biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
Bears that don't haunt suburbia are usually down for the count by now, because the plant material that makes up the bulk of their diets is out of season and covered with snow. Bears don't really eat that much meat, Jonkel said, so when the easy plant food is gone, they tend to hunker down.
“Usually with the first good snows and some cold weather, they burrow in,” Jonkel said. “Once the easy pickings are gone, they're ready to go to sleep.”
But for bears that make their livings around town, garbage, dog food and birdfeeders present a compelling reason to stay up past midnight.
“Once they're sort of food conditioned, they're less likely to go down,” he said. “And right now, we have tons and tons of food available for town bears. So in the last three or four years, it seems like we have a couple of black bears staying out till Christmas or so.”
Some of the available food is natural, of course. There are still plenty of crabapples and mountain ash berries hanging from the trees, Jonkel said.
“In the case of small bears, maybe they haven't had a chance to forage much because of competition from larger bears, so now they're getting their chance to get at some of the natural foods,” Jonkel said.
But most of what they're after is people-related - trash cans left out overnight, dog food left in the yard or dog house, and compost piles that aren't covered or locked up.
“The reason we have a lot of bears in the Rattlesnake, Grant Creek, Milltown and Bonner is that we have a lot of unnatural attractants,” Jonkel said. “If we could cut down on those, the bears will start to forget about them.”
That doesn't mean we won't have bears in our wilder neighborhoods, but they'll be there for berries and fruit rather than for hot dogs and Alpo.
“The only way that will happen is if we get the unnatural attractants out of the way,” Jonkel said.
Finally, there are always likely to be a few random bears about. Some, for reasons nobody quite understands, get up midwinter, go on a walkabout, then den again. Others den late and get up early.
“We've had bears that didn't go down until January and then they're back out and looking for trash cans by February,” Jonkel said. “There's always a little bit of mystery about what they're up to, but we can certainly cut down on the reasons for them to stay up late and wake up early.”
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or at mmoore@missoulian.com
Missoula firm to offer group health coverage
By MIKE DENNISON Missoulian State Bureau
HELENA - A Missoula firm will become only the third Montana-based company selling health insurance in the state, hoping to offer more affordable group coverage to small businesses.
Allegiance Life & Health Insurance Co., which already manages employee health plans for large employers that are self-insured, will start offering policies to smaller businesses early next year, said Dirk Visser, chief executive officer for the company.
“We're a Montana company and we want to serve Montana employees,” he said Thursday.
The company will get its “certificate of authority” Friday from the state, thus allowing it to sell health insurance policies in Montana.
State Auditor and Insurance Commissioner John Morrison said the entry of Allegiance into the health insurance market is good news for consumers, because the company will offer competition that could help keep rates down.
“It's even better if the company is based in Montana, because they can better understand our people and economic realities and the health care landscape,” Morrison said. “Their customers are their neighbors.”
Allegiance will join New West Health Services and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Montana as the only health insurance companies headquartered in Montana.
Blue Cross is the state's dominant private health insurer, controlling
51 percent of the group insurance market in Montana. New West is second largest, with about 10 percent of the market.
Allegiance, headquartered in Missoula and with offices in Helena and Billings, employs 200 people and has a $7 million annual payroll. Until now, its business has focused on managing plans for self-insured employers.
As a plan manager, Allegiance sets up networks of health care providers for the plan's covered employees, processes claims and offers other services. Its clients in Montana include the state university system, NorthWestern Energy, Washington Corps. and some local governments.
As a health insurer, Allegiance will offer the same services to small businesses, but will also be the actual insurer, responsible for financing and paying claims.
Visser said Allegiance will offer policies aimed at businesses that employ 10 to 200 workers.
“It's going to give us the opportunity to bring the ‘high-touch' business service model we have for large employers down to Main Street,” he said. “We'll be another competitive choice in the marketplace.”
“High-touch” service, as described by Visser, includes things such as case-management nurses who can help patients make health care decisions and guide them through provider networks.
He said other advantages offered by Allegiance include management of employee health spending accounts, so workers don't have to file separate documents to get money from those accounts, and lower administrative costs.
The company caps its increases in administrative costs, whereas other health insurers sometimes increase their overhead at the same rate of rising health care costs, Visser said.
“Over a five-year period, that could be a huge amount of money,” he said. “That's one of the ways that we're going to be more competitive and, we feel, bring costs down.”
Morrison said his office will be keeping close tabs on the overhead charged by Allegiance and other insurers.
Allegiance has been working with the state for several months to get its certificate of authority, Morrison said, meeting financial and other requirements in state law and rule.
“We look at their business plan and financial arrangements to make sure they're well-organized and financially sound,” he said. “It's a rigorous process.”
Todd Lovshin, assistant vice president for Allegiance, said the company has thought for several years it would like to offer health insurance policies in Montana, and began working on the idea “in earnest” in early 2005.
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or at mmoore@missoulian.com
Grizzly predation payouts decrease
By PERRY BACKUS of the Missoulian
For the most part, Montana's population of grizzly bears stayed away from the farmer's chicken coop and the rancher's sheep shed this past year.
By doing that, the bears also avoided the business end of the farmer's shotgun or the rancher's rifle.
The number of reported grizzly bear-related livestock depredations in Montana and Idaho dropped by 50 percent in 2006, according to Defenders of Wildlife, the conservation group that reimburses livestock owners for confirmed losses to grizzly bears.
The group compensated ranchers for 11 cattle, one goat and 10 chickens this year. In 2005, grizzlies killed 19 cattle, 11 sheep and 53 chickens.
The vast majority of grizzly bear deaths in the northern Rockies are human caused and often occur when bears are attracted to human food or livestock.
The total number of bears that died in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem was 14 in 2006, down from a record high of 34 in 2004.
“Because of exceptional natural food availability - like the excellent berry crop - we had very few bears getting into trouble with people, their livestock and garbage,” said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
People are also doing more to help ensure grizzly bears stay out of harm's way, he said.
“There are lots of different kinds of preventative measures people are taking to keep bears from getting into trouble,” Servheen said. “It might be something as small as putting the sheep into a shed at night. All of those combined efforts are starting to make a difference.”
Servheen said the Defenders of Wildlife program to compensate people who lose livestock to grizzly bears is helping build support in rural areas.
“I think it's huge,” he said. “People do lose livestock at times. It's really fair that they are paid when that occurs. Livestock producers can't sustain a lot of losses. They need some help.”
The Defenders program provides that, he said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 168,000 cattle and 49,000 sheep are lost to predation by wild and domestic animals every year. Grizzly bears are responsible for less than 1 percent of all livestock losses.
“Ranchers are crucial partners in the effort to conserve the grizzly bear in Montana,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, Defenders of Wildlife president. “While overall losses may be small, individual ranchers feel the sting when it's their sheep or cattle, and it's important to compensate them for their losses.”
Defenders of Wildlife has paid farmers and ranchers more than $140,000 in compensation since 1997, courtesy of The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Grizzly Bear Compensation Trust.
On average, the group pays about $15,000 a year. This year marked the record low at $9,194 and 2003 was the high at $19,629.
The program covers losses in Montana and Idaho. Wyoming has its own program.
In Montana, most of the bear mortality and livestock predation occurs along the Northern Continental Divide simply because that's where the largest number of bears are found, Servheen said. Most of the bears in the Greater Yellowstone area live in Wyoming.
Defenders of Wildlife also helps landowners pay for on-the-ground projects like electric fencing, purchasing livestock guard dogs and retiring grazing allotments in key grizzly bear habitat. So far, the group has invested $272,367 for 77 cost-share projects that help curtail grizzly bear and human conflicts and subsequently keep bears alive.
“Our programs are making a difference, and we are committed to cooperating with private landowners and agency officials to prevent conflicts,” said Minette Johnson, northern Rockies representative for Defenders in Montana. “There have been significant drops in livestock depredations as well as human-caused grizzly bear deaths in 2006, and we hope to see an even more dramatic drop next year.”
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