Grizzly Incident Count

[YukonGold]

Another potential reason is primary food source declining. For example, declining whitebark pine in some areas.

Another example, due to the drought and low berry production last year there was a sow and 2 cubs in December
still roaming the CSKT Bison Range near Charlo and they was videoed on shown on the local news.
I found large bear tracks in the snow hunting pheasants in 2 drainages 20-miles apart in late December last year.

This has to be part of it. The bears that came to the Florence area last year immediately started sniffing around garbage cans and had to be preventatively relocated.

I think it's a combination of more bears + more people + less available habitat per bear + drought, blister rust, and whatever else is affecting their natural food supply. Obviously bears are nowhere near their historic population and never will be, so it's going to depend on bears and humans learning how to be neighbors, because we want to live and recreate in the same places and eat the same things. Montanans clearly haven't figured out how to do that yet. Seems maybe Alaskans have?

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

How come Canada and Alaska don't have near the problems we have in the lower 48 with bears when they have 30x the bear population?

 

[MTTW]

Alaska G bears are not Montana G Bears. They live in town between houses on the AK peninsula. Try that in the lower 48. There are a half dozen houses within a couple of hundred yards of these two that are enjoying some afternoon delight.

 

[MTTW]

There are smoke houses all over the AK peninsula in peoples yards.

 

[rjthehunter]

I have an opposite perspective, I know bear spray works from personal experience after 30 years in Alaska.
And I've seen how many bullets it takes to kill a grizzly bear if the first shot is not in the brain or spine, both small moving targets.

A loud gunshot and a bullet wound makes them rethink their decision... you think that many people are executing perfect shots at charging bears? A gun as defense is clearly an extremely effective tool.

I'm not saying bear spray doesn't work, but there's better tools for the job.

I think you have a stubborn reluctance to use (or even bother with) a non-lethal, highly effective deterrent mixed up with a "sense of self preservation".

So with your logic... is it bad I don't carry pepper spray with me when I concealed carry? I'm not using my weapon unless I'm in fear of great bodily harm or death. Once I'm at that point, I'm prepared to use deadly force. Would pepper spray work? Maybe, maybe not. I don't intend to find out. I know bullets work.

 

[Benfromalbuquerque]

A loud gunshot and a bullet wound makes them rethink their decision... you think that many people are executing perfect shots at charging bears? A gun as defense is clearly an extremely effective tool.

I'm not saying bear spray doesn't work, but there's better tools for the job.

So with your logic... is it bad I don't carry pepper spray with me when I concealed carry? I'm not using my weapon unless I'm in fear of great bodily harm or death. Once I'm at that point, I'm prepared to use deadly force. Would pepper spray work? Maybe, maybe not. I don't intend to find out. I know bullets work.

 

[YukonGold]

A loud gunshot and a bullet wound makes them rethink their decision... you think that many people are executing perfect shots at charging bears? A gun as defense is clearly an extremely effective tool.

I'm not saying bear spray doesn't work, but there's better tools for the job.

So with your logic... is it bad I don't carry pepper spray with me when I concealed carry? I'm not using my weapon unless I'm in fear of great bodily harm or death. Once I'm at that point, I'm prepared to use deadly force. Would pepper spray work? Maybe, maybe not. I don't intend to find out. I know bullets work.

So you admit bear spray works? Then what's the problem? Why do you NEED to kill something to defend yourself, if doing so is not necessary to defend yourself?

And wow, you're awfully blasé about the taking of another human's life. "In fear of great bodily harm or death" is subjective and the reason so many unarmed people die at the hands of others. You could very successfully defend yourself from harm or death using nonlethal means. You're not even willing to try. Bullet or nothing. What a way to value life.

 

[406dn]

How come Canada and Alaska don't have near the problems we have in the lower 48 with bears when they have 30x the bear population?

Your question implies that the answer has to do with the lower 48 having many more humans wandering around in bear habitat.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

Your question implies that the answer has to do with the lower 48 having many more humans wandering around in bear habitat.

I've considered this, but look at mttw posts. And I also stated there is 30x the bears. I've venture to guess people in those areas are interacting with bears way more frequently than us low 48ers. But idk. I do not have the data to show one way or the other.

 

[MT Super Puncher]

So, back to the original discussion, its pretty easy to deduce that it's a combination of higher human usage of bear area lands, and an impressive success of grizzly reestablishment. Looking at the numbers, not sure why there is such a roadblock to opening hunting seasons in a few grizzly areas.

An activist judge in missoula who doesn’t follow the law but makes outcome based decisions is the reason why.

 

[Red Fox]

I had seen and had more bear encounters in the last year than before. That is hunting in the same areas as before. The last one shot here in Island Park I came across the week before. We were working through the thick timber heading for a ridge. we came across an elk carcass that was about cleaned off. Two different piles if crap, you could tell it was two bears. heard some jaws snapping so we headed in the opposite direction. The other time I spotted it at 70yrds and started to talk to it and it moved off.

There are more bears, not sure what to do other than to keep it in mind at all times.

 

[Beignet]

Would you guys please put the gun vs spray argument back in the Buffalo Bore box or the red Counter Assault can?

 

[mxracer317]

Sure. And you probably would have as well if you'd used bear spray instead.

I did say I carry both. Bear spray, and if that fails (as it did in Banff), use the gun. But most people this year didn't use or even carry bear spray at all.

I’d rather have/use a rifle.

 

[stoep]

The last few years it's been a couple of grizzly incidents in the lower 48 a year. Before that, one every few years. Before that, it was incredibly rare.

So for Hunttalkers out there, what do you think? Is it increased hunter days? Larger grizzly populations? Failure to enforce the ESA and delist a recovered species? Lack of food? Irresponsible or ignorant humans?

Also, they always list the exact same advice at the end of these articles: "when in grizzly country, do everything you can to be in a group, make noise, carry bear spray, wear dinner bells, announce to the world that you are in the woods." Exactly what a good hunter is not going to be doing, if they want to have any success in the field. So what, exactly, should be done?

"So far this year, 50 grizzly bear mortalities have been recorded by the Inter-Agency Grizzly Bear Study Team in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Of these, 13 are under investigation: six in Wyoming, four in Montana and three in Idaho."

"The most recent incident in Montana was just outside Gardiner in Beattie Gulch where a hunter shot a bear at close range. Prior to that, anglers shot a bear in nearby Tom Miner Basin and two men hunting near Whitefish were charged and shot the grizzly. Both of those incidents occurred in August. In September, a hunter wounded a male bear with a shotgun blast while bird hunting near Freezout Lake. The bear was never found.

In addition, a female hiker near West Yellowstone was killed in a grizzly bear mauling in July. The bear was later killed after it broke into a home seeking food. On Sept. 8, a man tracking a wounded deer by Big Sky was mauled and seriously injured. In June, a black bear hunter shot a grizzly after being charged south of Ennis. In May, a grizzly was found shot dead near Noxon."

https://billingsgazette.com/outdoor...a28167c6c.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

The recent beattie gulch incident isn't even the most recent anymore. Opening day of rifle a hunter shot a grizzly in the south gravelies

 

[atlas]

Another example, due to the drought and low berry production last year there was a sow and 2 cubs in December still roaming the CSKT Bison Range near Charlo and they was videoed on shown on the local news.
I found large bear tracks in the snow hunting pheasants in 2 drainages 20-miles apart in late December last year.

I think the main reason you saw that is because a lot of corn is grown on the CSKT for silage. Some of the corn isn’t harvested into January and the bears are definitely in there late in the year every year.

 

[CMF]

#1 More bears and expanding population, more people, less habitat
#2 Bears aren't hunted, less fear of humans - Can this be proven with data from Alaska maybe? I don't know, but you sure can see a difference in the behavior of deer, black bears, and other critters in areas that are hunted vs areas that are not(National parks, etc.)

I can't completely agree that killing problem bears is preventing delisting, if anything it's showing there is a problem, and that removing x number from the population isn't restricting their growth.

 

[Beignet]

One more for the list: just saw that an old boar was recently killed in a vehicle collision near Bonner.

 

[rjthehunter]

So you admit bear spray works? Then what's the problem? Why do you NEED to kill something to defend yourself, if doing so is not necessary to defend yourself?

And wow, you're awfully blasé about the taking of another human's life. "In fear of great bodily harm or death" is subjective and the reason so many unarmed people die at the hands of others. You could very successfully defend yourself from harm or death using nonlethal means. You're not even willing to try. Bullet or nothing. What a way to value life.

I do value life. But I value my life more than I value someone or something who is trying to take my life... You do you. You can play games with your life. I'll preserve mine.

Crazy stance to take on your end. I "don't value life" because I'd shoot someone or something that's trying to kill me... Somehow that makes me a bad guy?

 

[LuketheDog]

I do value life. But I value my life more than I value someone or something who is trying to take my life... You do you. You can play games with your life. I'll preserve mine.

Crazy stance to take on your end. I "don't value life" because I'd shoot someone or something that's trying to kill me... Somehow that makes me a bad guy?

Start a new thread for this...

 

[Dougfirtree]

Limiting encounters between bears and people is a noble goal and worthy of thought and investment. That said, maybe it's worthwhile to just recognize that when we have healthy populations of grizzlies and people living around each other, people and bears are going to get killed from time to time. It's sad, but is it necessarily a problem that needs to be "solved?" Seems more like a fact of life in certain areas.

I tend to think that the differences between Alaska and say, Montana, have more to do with the bears, their lifestyle and the landscape, than they do with hunting. My wife worked in the backcountry of Denali Nat. Park for a while, where I don't believe the bears experienced much hunting pressure, and her level of concern about the bear danger seemed markedly less than a lot of the people who recreate in the northern Rockies. In fact, I seem to recall some paper that I read in college (in Montana) about correlations between bear's diets and their likelihood of attacking humans...