“Maybe less than one a year,” says Dale Becker, wildlife manager with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, “and of the ones reported, most of those are sightings from a distance.”
His goal is to keep it that way, which is why he's reminding people that the potential for encounters is very real. As bears prepare to hibernate, they move into thick cover along streambanks, cattail areas in wetlands and shelterbelts.
In the mid-1980s, two hunters ignored a landowner's warning of bear activity on his property, and encountered a female grizzly with two cubs.
“One guy ended up getting injured and the other guy ended up shooting the female,” Becker says. “When our officers went in to look for the female, they encountered a large male grizzly who became very aggressive, and they had to shoot him. Then the cubs were lost later in the fall because they startled a gentleman at his house, and he shot them.
“It was a real sad chain of events that probably could have been avoided.”
The other was five or six years ago. As CSKT officers were in the process of posting an area as closed, a hunter that they shooed away went around to the back of the section being posted, entered and also encountered a female grizzly and two cubs.
“He ended up shooting her at point-blank range when she charged,” Becker says. “We don't know what happened to the cubs. They may still be out there, or they may not have made it.”
That pheasant hunters often have dogs with them can be a double-edged sword in a bear encounter, according to Becker.
“If a dog stands his ground with a bear, it can give the hunter time to put some distance between himself and the bear,” Becker says. “But it's not something you can plan on. If a dog gets the heck scared out of it, it's going to run for where it believes it can find security, which is usually (to) the human being that owns it.”
Becker says he advises people to treat hunting trips as they would a trip to a large, unfamiliar city.
“You're usually very aware of what's around you” in a strange place, he says. “It's not that there's a bear or mountain lion around every corner or under every bush waiting to pounce on you. But be alert.”
Watch for bear tracks in soft ground and bear scat. And make noise.
“You don't necessarily have to wear bear bells,” Becker says. “Sometimes talking alone is enough. Bears hear well, and if the wind is OK, they smell extremely well. But their eyesight is not that great.”
Contact wildlife or land managers before you hunt to see if there's been any bear activity reported in the area where you're headed. And if you see signs of bear activity once you get there - or actually see a bear - “go someplace else,” he says.
The bears are attracted to cornfields and old apple trees in the Mission Valley.
“South of Post Creek, there are dairy farms that grow corn they chop into feed for the cows,” Becker says. “The bears use the fields as a food source, for day beds and for cover until the fields are chopped out and harvested.”
Hunters, he says, need to remember they're not in the cornfields of Iowa.
“You're in Montana, where occasionally you may encounter large predatory animals,” Becker says. “It's a bad thing to scare a bear. Most bear attacks occur when a bear has been surprised, usually in thick cover.”
Since that mid-'80s encounter that led to the death of four grizzlies, the tribes have purchased several tracts of land in the Millie's Woods area northeast of St. Ignatius, which they close during the fall. It's an important late-season feeding area for grizzlies - and where they prepare for winter hibernation.
Millie's Woods has been closed since Sept. 1, and will remain so until Dec. 1 - or later, if grizzly bear activity is still a concern for wildlife managers.
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