In the spring of 2009, two grizzly bears named Rainy and Scarhip were seen frolicking through fields and across highways. Soon thereafter, both bears were captured near Seeley Lake, Montana and fitted with tracking collars. To have any chance of survival, Rainy and Scarhip would have to avoid a variety of temptations, including garbage cans, birdfeeders, and chicken coops – all containing delicious snacks for a hungry bear.

A grizzly bear roams into an apple orchard.

Needless to say, the outlook was not good, and Scarhip was getting into people’s yards almost immediately. But food attractants aren’t the only threat to grizzly bears, and in October of 2009, Scarhip was mistakenly shot and killed by a black hear hunter. Meanwhile, Rainy stayed out of trouble all summer long before heading to her den north of Lake Alva. The following spring she emerged with two cubs and spent the next few months in the Placid Lake area. Then, suddenly, on July 14th, she was documented near Seeley Lake again, feeding on garbage, grain, bird seed and dog food. Females with cubs need as many calories as they can find, and Rainy had hit the jackpot.

That was the beginning of the end for Rainy. Before long, she and her cubs were climbing onto porches, damaging buildings and approaching people. Due to escalating concerns for human safety, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks decided to trap all three bears. But it was too late — one of Rainy’s cubs was hit by a car crossing Highway 83. A month later, FWP trapped Rainy and her remaining cub and sent them to a zoo in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sadly, the cub died a year later from a rare fungal infection, while Rainy still remains at the zoo.

The saddest part of the story, however, is that the loss of these bears was almost entirely avoidable. Simple solutions like electric fencing are highly effective at securing attractants like bee yards, apple orchards, lambing pastures, chicken coops and compost piles. Other successful deterrents include bear-resistant garbage enclosures and using livestock guard dogs, range riders and alternative grazing methods.

Some of these tools can be expensive, but there are resources available to help residents protect their property and prevent conflict. For example, Defenders of Wildlife started a program in 2010 to help pay for smaller fencing projects. So far the program has secured 58 sites in Montana and helped save grizzly bears.

Electric fencing around bear attractants like chicken coops can make a big difference.

Take the Morris family, for instance. They’re a 4-H family from northwest Montana with pigs, goats, sheep and chickens. Last year, the Morrises routinely had grizzly bears on their property and had Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks on “speed dial.” They wanted to install a sturdy electric fence but didn’t think they could afford one. FWP directed the Morrises to our incentive program, which helped pay for installing the fence they wanted — a win-win solution for both bears and people. The Morrises finished their electric fence last October and are expecting local wildlife residents to be quite “shocked” when they come around this spring.

Since 1997, Defenders of Wildlife has also been compensating ranchers for livestock losses to grizzly bears. This year, Montana will take this program over through the state’s Livestock Loss Board. Though not a perfect solution, compensation programs help mitigate the financial impact on ranchers and their families. But compensation only addresses conflicts after the damage has already been done. It’s far better to find ways to prevent conflicts from occurring in the first place. And on the rare occasions when these tools aren’t enough, wildlife managers need the flexibility to relocate or remove grizzly bears that are deemed a serious threat to humans.

Aldo Leopold, the grandfather of wildlife conservation, once wrote, “Relegating grizzlies to Alaska is about like relegating happiness to heaven; one may never get there.”

By the late 1800s, this became a real fear. An estimated population of 50,000 grizzly bears plummeted to just a few hundred in less than one percent of their historic range. Fortunately, grizzly bears were protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1975 and have been making a strong comeback ever since. Today, there are approximately 1,700 grizzly bears in the lower 48. Most of us have welcomed these magnificent creatures back to our landscape. But it will take concerted efforts by all of us living in grizzly country to ensure continued recovery of the species. Ultimately, the fate of grizzly bears in Montana and across the West still rests in our hands.

I hope grizzlies are never relegated to Alaska nor happiness to heaven. And hopefully, by working together, we can ensure that our children and grandchildren can continue to find both right here in Montana.

To learn more about what you can do to coexist with grizzly bears, visit defenders.org/GotGrizzlies.

Originally published by Montana Public Radio

CEOs urge Sally Jewell to maintain wolf protections

“Maintaining federal protections for wolves is essential for continued species recovery, and the unwarranted assault on wolves that commenced in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho after wolves in those states lost federal protections highlights the increasingly hostile anti-wolf policies of states now charged with ensuring the survival of gray wolf populations.”

The fate of America’s wolves is now in the hands of Secretary Jewell. Please contact her today and urge her to cancel plans to delist gray wolves across much of the lower 48 states. Help us reach our goal of sending 250,000 messages in support of continued wolf recovery!

Sheep rancher kills Yellowstone wolf – Hunting season is over in Wyoming, Montana and nearly all of Idaho, but that doesn’t mean wolves are no longer in danger. On Monday a rancher just near Gardiner, Montana killed a collared female wolf that he suspected of attacking his flock of sheep. The wolf, known as 831F, came from the Canyon Pack that spends much of its time in the Hayden Valley of Yellowstone National Park.

Federal investigators had determined that two wolves were responsible for killing 18 sheep, and the rancher was given two kill-on-sight permits as a result. However, lead Yellowstone wolf biologist Doug Smith told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that 831F was not the wolf responsible for the livestock losses. Instead, she was likely drawn into the area after the rancher left the carcasses on a bone pile on his property.

While some environmental groups suspect foul play, we see this as yet another important reminder of the importance of finding ways for people and wildlife to coexist on the landscape.

See the full news report from KPAX below:

©James Ownby

Mark Salvo, Federal Lands Policy Analyst

There are few birds in the American West that know how to party like sage-grouse. Oh sure, you’ve got your hummingbirds with their swooping and diving and your huge, gawky sandhill cranes with their flamboyant, noisy mating rituals. But for sheer spectacle, nothing beats the sage-grouse and now is the perfect time to see them strut their stuff because it’s mating season out West.

Sage-grouse dancing occurs from March to May. In early spring at dawn, and often at dusk, sage-grouse congregate on “leks”— ancestral strutting grounds to which the birds return year after year. To attract a hen, males jockey for position, fan their tail feathers and swell their breasts to reveal yellow air sacs, and then, just as quickly, deflate them to make an utterly unique “swish-swish-coooopoink!” sound that can be heard from over a mile away. Scientists aren’t certain what about this flamboyant display is attractive to females, but it works. Take a look:

Sage-grouse are the charismatic ambassador of the “Sagebrush Sea,” a term given to the vast sagebrush prairie that once sprawled across thirteen western states and three Canadian provinces. Lewis and Clark described the grouse in their journal as the “cock of the plains”, and nineteenth century travelers reported seeing huge flocks of sage-grouse that darkened the sky as they lifted from valley floors. Native Americans emulated sage-grouse in ceremonial dress and dance. Settlers hunted the bird for food, and even collected sage-grouse eggs in spring for table use. Centuries of westerners have admired sage-grouse as fellow dwellers of the high desert, and birders travel from around the world to see sage-grouse in the wild.

Unfortunately, like too many other iconic western wildlife species, sage-grouse are in trouble. Sagebrush grasslands are a heavily used landscape. Humans have plowed, sprayed, burned, drilled, developed, mined and grazed millions of acres of sagebrush habitat. The remaining habitat is fragmented and degraded by weeds, wildfire, juniper encroachment, utility corridors, roads and fences. Sage-grouse range has been reduced by almost half with the loss of sagebrush steppe and grouse populations have declined to just ten percent of their historic numbers.

Sage-grouse in the snow (© Alan St. John)

William Hornaday of the New York Zoological Society was among the first to express concern for sage-grouse in 1916, publishing a pamphlet titled “Save the Sage Grouse from Extinction: A Demand from Civilization to the Western States.” Conservationists have heeded his call and launched a west-wide campaign to protect the grouse and the Sagebrush Sea. After struggling for more than a decade, we finally got a break in 2011 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service committed to review sage-grouse for listing under the Endangered Species Act by 2015. The date certain for a range-wide sage-grouse listing decision has compelled a multitude of federal and state agencies and local entities to finally develop conservation strategies to protect and recover sage-grouse and their habitat.

Defenders of Wildlife is heavily engaged in these planning processes. We are analyzing thousands of pages of documents and working to improve federal and state conservation strategies. In Washington, DC, we are urging the Obama administration and Congressional representatives to strengthen conservation initiatives for sage-grouse, and out West we are diligently working to ensure that new development won’t harm the species.

But sometimes you’ve just got to make time to enjoy these spectacular birds. We invite you attend a show at a sage-grouse lek this spring. Dress warmly, bring binoculars and coffee, and be ready for fun. And then join Defenders to conserve sage-grouse so that they may continue to impress for generations to come.

Non-existent wolves more important than schools

“I know what the sportsmen of Utah would do [about wolves]! Worse case, we would go to the PETA pound and save 1,000 dogs about to be killed by PETA and HSUS and stake them out in wolf areas – well fed and cared for of course – but when the wolves killed these dogs, get the wolves killed. Or we would go and buy a bunch of ba ba sheep, stake them out in five acre pens and when wolves killed them, get the wolves killed.” — Don Peay, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife

Unbelievably, the state is about to give these guys another $300,000.  Read the latest here. Our last hope is to convince Utah Gov. Gary Herbert to strike the expenditure with a line-item veto.

Finding the middle way – When dealing with the western wolf wars, it’s all too easy to pick a side (pro-wolf or anti-wolf) and ignore the rest. So it’s always refreshing when someone takes an outside perspective that sheds light on the vast gray area in between. A new wolf documentary from LinkTV’s Earth Focus does exactly that by telling the stories of the ranchers, tour guides, taxidermists and conservationists trying to chart a new path of coexistence between wolves and people. Defenders Rockies and Plains Director Mike Leahy offers some thoughts on how federal protections were unceremoniously removed from wolves without adequate state protections in place. Other long-time collaborators share their insights as well, including Carter Niemeyer, former wolf trapper and Idaho wolf recovery coordinator, Nathan Varley, Yellowstone wolf-tour operator, and representatives of People and Carnivores and the Blackfoot Challenge. Watch the full episode below:

And don’t miss UK journalist Jim Wickens’ blog series for a behind-the-scenes look at the people who bring this story to life.

New faces on Montana wildlife commission – Montana’s new governor, Steve Bullock, has appointed three new commissioners to oversee state wildlife management: Billings attorney Matthew Tourtlette, Chinook rancher Richard Stuker, and Wolf Point college director Lawrence Wetsit. We congratulate all three and look forward to working with them as well as returning commissioners Dan Vermillion and Bob Ream. Gov. Bullock has called on the commission to reinstate the wolf advisory council, which will hopefully steer the state away from ever-more aggressive wolf management practices.

The male wolf known as OR7 has been California’s lone ranger over the last year.

OR7 headed back home – After spending more than a year in the Golden State, the lone male wolf known as OR-7 appears to be headed home…at least for a little while. State wildlife managers say he crossed from northeastern Siskiyou County in California to southwest Klamath County in Oregon Tuesday evening. Who knows where he’s headed next… You can keep track with updates from Oregon and California.

Pacific Northwest update – Washington State senators debated two wolf bills during their March 8, 2013 session. Senate Bill 5188 takes wolf-management authority away from the state wildlife agency and turns it over to local law enforcement. Senate Bill 5187 would allow property owners and their designees too much discretion to kill wolves that they speculate may be threatening their livestock.  SB 5187 passed out last Friday with a vote of 25-23.  This is the strongest no vote made in recent years on a bad wildlife bill in the Senate.  Watch a televised hearing of the senate debate, including wolf champion Senator Kevin Ranker and other conservation minded leaders like Senator Christine Rolfes, beginning at the 13-minute mark. on the televised hearing: We are working with state legislators to defeat the anti-wolf bills in the House of Representatives.

Over in Oregon, Defenders is working with tribal biologists, ranchers and county extension agents at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla reservation in Pendleton.  The tribe recently included a top news story on meeting with tribal officials last month.

Carl Scheeler, manager of the CTUIR Wildlife Pro­gram, said Defenders of Wildlife have been the Tribes’ strongest and most durable partner in the conservation community when it comes to wolf recovery.

“We’ve been working with Defenders since before B45 came into the state in 1999,” said Scheeler, referring to the first wolf that swam the Snake River from Idaho into Oregon. — Confederated Umatilla Journal

OR-14, a wolf from the Umatilla River pack. (c) ODFW

In 1999, a female wolf from Idaho crossed over into central Oregon before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracked her down, darted her, caged her and then returned her to Idaho. She was the first known wolf to return to Oregon since the mid-1930s, when the species was officially eradicated. Her journey set efforts into motion that led to the creation of the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. Other legislation, knee-jerk county decrees and countless news stories followed, all speculating on what impact wolves might have as they returned to their historic homeland.

I served on the original team that helped draft the earliest versions of what eventually became the state’s wolf plan. That’s where I met Carl Scheeler, wildlife biologist for the Umatilla tribe in northeast Oregon, who would continue to help the state craft conservation strategies that were adopted in 2005. Carl is a great biologist and also good with people. His sometimes irreverent humor was always well timed to lift discussions that had become muddied or polarized. He seemed to know that, no matter what, things were going to work out. His optimism helped many of us endure the endless (and often thankless) work of forging a plan that would secure the restoration of wolves while meeting the needs of diverse residents.

Carl always looked forward to the day that wolves would be documented on the Umatilla reservation, and would call from time to time with reports of tracks, sightings and other hopeful signs. It wasn’t until last year, however, that his hopes were finally fulfilled. Carl’s department assisted the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) in efforts to confirm the first wolf den site near the reservation. ODFW wolf biologists documented four pups last summer, and Defenders helped the tribe purchase several infrared, motion-detection wildlife cameras to continue monitoring the pack. In the fall, tribal biologists used the cameras we provided to document the alpha male of the pack. Then, just a few weeks ago, they captured this footage of the pack. We don’t know what startles the young wolf during the video, but notice how he submissively wraps his tail under his hindlegs. That’s normally the response of a lower-ranking wolf or pup when frightened.

Last week, Carl and I met with local ranchers and tribal and state wildlife managers to discuss nonlethal strategies for reducing conflicts between livestock and wolves on the reservation. We talked about the use of carcass disposal, increased human presence, fladry and other deterrents to reduce wolf and livestock losses. After the meeting, we followed up on a tip from a wildlife manager of another possible pack near tribal lands. It’s a beautiful national forest area that looks like the expansive valleys and rolling mountains in Yellowstone. There were loads of elk and plenty of deer sign in the large, open meadows and gorgeous red-barked Ponderosa pines towering above us as we drove through the rolling hills. After driving over washboard-pitted dirt roads with a blizzard bearing down on us, we found the spot where the tracks were reported. Tracking conditions were pretty good in the thin blanket of snow that covered most of the ground. Eager to confirm a new pack, we examined the tracks and quickly determined they were canine, but not wolf. Wolves have huge feet and leave a track that typically measures about five inches in length and three to four inches in width. That’s about the size of my hand, which is useful when I don’t have a ruler handy. Unfortunately, these were dog tracks – a big dog to be certain, but not his wild ancestor.

I always welcome the chance to return to the Umatilla country, and it’s even more powerful now with wolves back on the reservation. As one tribal leader assured me, “Wolves are welcome here and we hope to never lose them again.” Defenders will be part of that effort to ensure that wolves have a secure future on their historic homeland that they once again share with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla.

“Washington stakeholders spent four years working to develop a comprehensive, science-based wolf management plan that underwent statewide public review.  It is a balanced plan that promotes nonlethal deterrents to help livestock owners protect against losses to wolves. It also allows wolves to be killed if they become habituated to killing livestock and provides compensation to livestock owners to cover documented losses.  But now powerful ranching advocates in the state senate are making an end-run around the plan to strip protection from wolves and allow their constituents to serve as judge, jury and executioner in killing wolves on private and public lands.  Without state oversight to ensure that wolves are even responsible for the losses blamed on them, innocent wolves could be killed by those who oppose their very presence in Washington.”

We’re asking wolf supporters in Washington to help us oppose state Senate bills designed to stop wolf recovery in its tracks. We need your voice to stand up to those who want to  cripple the plan and eradicate wolves. Please call your local legislators and tell them to VOTE NO on all senate wolf bills (SB 5187, SB 5188, SB 5193) . Access contact information for the senator in your area here.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced last week that the wolf population had nearly doubled since last year. That’s great news, but there are still only about 50 wolves in the state. We’ve got a long way  to go before Washington’s wolf conservation objectives are achieved, so let’s keep those numbers growing!

Fladry works – For years we’ve been promoting flag fencing, known as fladry, as an effective nonlethal tool for keeping livestock safe from wolves. We’ve worked with many ranchers who have used it effectively to protect both cattle and sheep, but now we have video evidence to prove it. Last year, through the support of donors, we provided Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife with  fladry that field biologists have used several times to successfully deter wolves from livestock.  These biologists cleverly tested the fladry with a video camera recently by stringing it around a cow carcass – a serious temptation for a hungry wolf. Even after repeated visits over several days, the wolf never crossed the fladry line. See for yourself:

Wyoming collars more wolves – There’s a lot to complain about when it comes to wolf management in Wyoming. At least 74 wolves have been killed since the state took over wolf management in September – 42 in the trophy game area and 32 (out of approximately 50 wolves) in the “predator zone,” where wolves can be killed at anytime  . But Wyoming Game and Fish does deserve a little credit for continuing to carefully monitor its wolf population. Early last week the department announced that they had collared 16 wolves in the trophy game area, putting a collar on at least one wolf in nearly every major pack. While collaring alone doesn’t protect wolves –as we’ve seen with the killing of several iconic, collared wolves from Yellowstone—it will help ensure that state and federal biologists have the information they need to accurately assess the health of the population. Without this information, wildlife managers can’t make informed decisions about how their actions are affecting the wolf population. Good management must be based on good data, and at least they’ve got that second part down.