- Bill and Gretchen Wilson Host Missoula “Friends of Montana” Fundraiser
- Augmentation Trapping Summary, by Heather Reich
- Jack and Suzi Hanna Host “Friends of Montana” Fundraiser
- Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks grizzly bear management specialists relocate a family of grizzlies near Eureka, Montana
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Augmentation Trapping Summary, by Heather Reich
Added by Donna De Rosier on August 13, 2008
This is a summary of our trapping from May 22-July 23
We adjusted our trapping technique this year to use culvert traps that were actively able to trap. Our reasoning was that we didn’t want to risk missing a bear that might travel through an area and not come back for a few weeks with culverts that were locked open. We coupled these culverts (we had 4 in the field) with many bait sites with cameras. We did put cameras on the culvert traps that allowed us to see if a bear was visiting and not wanting to get into the trap. If it showed resistance to the trap, we could then set a snare if needed.
Black bears that we avoided capturing by use of camera – 55 (these are not all individual bears, many of these bears were repeat visitors!) We did have three breeding pairs on camera! This was very interesting to us, as we’ve never seen two bears on camera at the same time unless it was a female with cubs.
Black bears that we caught in culvert traps and released without chemical immobilization= 10
We had 8 male grizzly bears on camera that we avoided capturing. We had 2 male grizzly bears caught in culvert traps that we were able to release without chemical immobilization. One male was in very poor condition due to fighting during breeding season and we believe, if we had been required to chemically immobilize him, we would have compromised his survival.
We had a female grizzly bear that is a management bear, so identifiable by her collar, show up on camera 9 times. We did capture her once in a culvert and were able to release her without chemical immobilization. If Rick Mace’s Trend Monitoring Project will be able to use her, this will be considered a capture for that project.
We had a highly probable female grizzly come in to a bait site once, but she never returned.
We did capture 3 male grizzly bears that were chemically immobilized. All three turned out to be younger subadult male grizzlies that had the appearances of females on camera. One capture was along the Spotted Bear River road in the South Fork, once capture was in the Trail Creek drainage of the Whitefish Range and the third was captured near Frozen Lake in the Whitefish Range.
One of these subadult males was chemically immobilized twice…the first time he was wet and the camera showed that he looked like he might be a female. The second time we caught him he was dry and looked completely different and very much like a female. Unfortunately these young males have not dropped their testicles yet, so our usual way of confirming a male is complicated by this. Again, we chemically immobilized him. This time we clipped the hair on one of his ears so we could identify him if he got caught again. We did capture him two more times and with the clipping of the hair, knew he was not what we wanted and were able to release him without chemical immobilization. Unfortunately, due to his frequency at visiting the trap site, we decided to pull out of that area because he would most likely keep females from coming in.
We did capture a collared female grizzly bear that had two cubs of the year with her. This bear was originally caught in September of 2005 as part of Rick Mace’s Trend Monitoring Project. This put her collar at three years of age and needing to be replaced. We did chemically immobilize this bear in order to place a new monitoring collar on her for the Trend Monitoring Project.
On July 23rd we caught a 2 ½ year old female grizzly bear in a culvert trap. Being a smaller bear, the camera monitoring that trap was able to help me confirm that she was not a yearling with a mother and/or sibling in the area. She was taken to Libby, fitted with a GPS collar on July 24rth and that evening released into the Cabinet Mountains as a successful candidate for the augmentation project. She weighed 185 pounds.
Derek and I took off from the 25th-August 11th. We will resume trapping in full on Monday August 11th.
On August 8th as part of a separate trapping effort in the Swan Valley, Tim Manley caught a 3-4 year old female grizzly in a culvert trap. This female was caught in early May, but it was too early for her to go to the Cabinets as snow would not allow us to the release site. It was luck that Tim caught her, he was not targeting for her. After confirming that she had no management history, we accompanied Tim Manley and the bear to Libby where she was fitted with a radio collar and released into the Cabinet Mountains that evening. She was 230 pounds.
So we have successfully placed TWO augmentation females into the Cabinet Mountains in two weeks!
We will continue to trap for the remainder of the season in the hopes of picking up more females.
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