BILLINGS – Federal and state wildlife agencies have launched a campaign to prevent grizzly bear killings in the greater Yellowstone region after a record number of deaths last year.
More backcountry ranger patrols are planned, thousands of warning signs will be posted and hunters and hikers will be encouraged to use pepper spray instead of firearms when approached by a bear.
Forty-eight bears were killed by humans last year, out of 79 total grizzly deaths. That included at least 20 killed by hunters who shot the animals out of self-defense or after mistaking them for black bears.
There are an estimated 600 grizzlies in the Yellowstone region of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. They were removed from the endangered species list in 2007, although it remains illegal to intentionally shoot the animals.
Seventeen grizzlies have died so far this year. If the death rate stays high for a second consecutive year, that would trigger a review of the bear’s endangered status.
Biologists who study grizzlies insist the population in the 15,000-square-mile Yellowstone region remains strong, growing on average 4 to 5 percent a year.
After a prolonged drought over much of the last decade, the region has had adequate moisture this year to boost berry crops, ant populations and other foods bears eat. Wildlife officials say they hope that means bears will be less likely to seek out food where they can run into humans.
“So far nature has been good to us as far as the wild foods that have been available to bears,” said Gregg Losinski with Idaho Fish and Game. “That has bought us maybe a little time.”
But a more lasting problem is presented by climate change, blamed for a massive die-off of the region’s whitebark pine trees. The trees’ seeds are relied on by some grizzlies as a dietary staple, which means the number of conflicts seen last year could be repeated when other foods also become scarce.
Craig Kenworthy with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a Bozeman, Mont.-based conservation group, said the education program launched this year should help. But he said it should be carried further, by making it mandatory for hunters and hikers to carry bear spray in areas where bears are known to live.
“I don’t think education alone is necessarily going to address some of these issues,” Kenworthy said. “In some cases, that’s going to mean we need both a carrot and a stick.”
Christopher Servheen, bear recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said representatives of the region’s wildlife agencies will gather in October to review whether their new campaign is working.
“If it’s not sufficient we’ll go back to the drawing board,” he said.