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Grizzly Bear Conservation

Cabinet Mountains Grizzly Bear Augmentation Project

Since 1999 the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Foundation has raised more than a million dollars for grizzly bear management, research and conservation in Montana. This year the Foundation plans to raise $100,000 in matching funds to continue this critical conservation initiative.

While grizzly bear populations in the Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide (NCDE) areas appear to being doing well, the same cannot be said for the Cabinet and Yaak River areas of extreme northwestern Montana. The somewhat isolated Cabinet Mountains is a particular area of concern for Montana’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department (FWP). Under the guidelines of the new FWP Grizzly Bear Management Plan, young female grizzly bears from the NCDE will be trapped and transplanted to the Cabinet Mountains to bolster the reproductive segment of that Montana grizzly bear population.

This important work is very difficult as biologists are targeting 3-6 year old females with no history of conflict. This kind of effort requires a concentrated trapping attempt in key productive areas of grizzly bear habitat north and east of the Flathead Valley.

The Fish, Wildlife and Parks Foundation is making this effort possible by gifting $25,000 to the project during 2007 and $45,000 during 2008. The foundation plans to raise $100,000 during 2008 to fund this program for 2009 and 2010. This generous financial support funds a contract to hire Heather and Derek Reich, two trained grizzly bear trappers, to assist FWP with this effort. “Without the Foundation’s support this augmentation program would not be possible”, says Tim Manley, FWP’s grizzly bear management specialist. Manley added that “both Heather and Derek have worked on both grizzly bear conflict and research for a number of years in northwest Montana and bring a unique set of qualifications to Montana’s bear program”.

The goal of this project is to move 2 or 3 female grizzly bears per year to the Cabinet Mountains until monitoring efforts indicate that the population is wither stable or increasing. Eventually it is FWP’s hope that the grizzly bears in the Cabinet Mountains will eventually be interacting with grizzlies from the Yaak, Purcell, Selkirk and the NCDE areas as one large recovered bear population.

You can make a difference by contributing to important projects like this!
Click here to make an on-line donation to this important project today!

Or please send your tax-deductible donation TODAY to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Foundation, PO Box 200701, Helena MT 59620-0701, or call us for more information at 406-444-6759. Thank you!

Click here to see the 2007 Grizzly Bear Augmentation Project Report (Adobe PDF File)