- Second Grizzly Bear Captured and Moved to Cabinet Mountains-2010 Augmentation Project Completed
- First 2010 Augmentation Grizzly Moved to Cabinets
- Grizzly Bear Project Update – July 6, 2010
- Grizzly Bear Project Field Update May 29-June 12, 2010
- 2010 Grizzly Bear Project Underway
- Outfitter Partners in Conservation
- Winter 2010 Newsletter Available On-Line
Latest News From the Foundation Blog...
SUCCESS! 2009 Augmentation Female Grizzly Moved to Cabinet Mountains!
Added by George Bettas on January 24, 2010
August Update
During the month of August, due to heat, we kept the culvert trap doors locked open and just ran the traps as bait sites, consulting the cameras for identification of who had visited. During the month we had a couple of subadult males frequent our sites, so we knew, when we started setting the culvert traps that we’d undoubtedly catch them.
September Update
Starting on September 1, we set our culvert traps to catch critters again. I call September the “magical month” because the bears are in full on hyperphagia and will go to extremes for food. So the female grizzlies that are usually wary and hard to catch suddenly become easier.
Sure enough, those two subadult males started getting themselves caught…seemed like we caught one or the other every other day. We also started seeing a lot of wolf activity at and around our culvert traps. Very interesting as we have never had that before.
Capture and work up of subadult male wolf.
On September 9th a 5 month old wolf pup was caught in our culvert trap! I think we made wildlife history with that one as I don’t know if that has ever been done before! (See attached picture of the wolf pup in the culvert trap). We got a hold of the wolf biologist, Kent Laudon, via satellite phone and had Tim show him the way to the trap site, so he and his technician were able to gather biological data from the pup and microchip her, but she was too tiny (50 pounds) to hold a collar.
On September 11th we caught a female grizzly, but she was lactating, so we knew she would not be a candidate for the augmentation project. However, she would work for Dr. Rick Mace’s Trend Monitoring Project. Tim Manley was running the trap line with me that day, so the two of us chemically immobilized her and put a collar on her for Dr. Mace’s project. The camera had run out due to ravens at the site, so we could not confirm how many cubs she had, however we suspected that she was the bear that had three yearlings, as we had seen her on camera a couple of times in August. On Friday, the 12th, Tim flew and got a visual of her with the three yearlings, so we were able to confirm that for Dr. Mace’s data base.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Foundation Donor Stewardship
On September 13th Tim Manley captured a bear down in Condon as part of another research project. This project is attempting to put collars out in the Swan Valley for graduate student Mark Ruby to study and assess grizzly bear use of the valley and possible sources of conflict we may not be aware of. Tim was able to contact the John and Judy O’Steen and Gary and Carolyn Dietrich as part of our donor stewardship program which enables us to take Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Foundation out in the field to observe our work. The bear turned out to be a very healthy 600 pound 6 year old grizzly that originally had been caught on the Confederate Salish and Kootenai Tribal Land on the west side of the Mission mountains. His collaring went well and he is still wearing it.
Carolyln Dietrich with Condon grizzly bear.
On September 15 Tim and I assisted Russ Talmo, a wildlife technician assisting Mike Madel out of Choteau, with the release of a subadult grizzly on the east side of Hungry Horse Reservoir. This was the one year birthday of our puppies and what a great present for them to be able to help bark at a bear as it ran into the trees. After that, Tim and I ran the trap line and, again, had to set free one of the subadult males that had gotten himself caught in one of our traps.
Success!
First 2009 Augmentation Female Moved to Cabinets!
On September17th, Tim was running the trap line with me again and, much to our surprise and delight, we caught a female grizzly that we had never seen before…she had never been on camera. Tim and I had a hard time confirming her gender, although she seemed to fit the profile for a female, so we pulled out the trap and took her out of the mountains. We stopped at one point to see if the better light would allow us to get a better look at her to confirm her gender. I was looking down on her and noticed a dark nipple, which is only on female bears that have had cubs. That confirmed her gender. I did not see any swelling associated with the nipple, which made me believe she was not lactating, which meant she did not have cubs, which would further qualify her for augmentation. But Tim was not willing to make a call until we had her immobilized and could get a close look. This female was very snarky and was not cooperating with us getting a good look at her. Every time she saw our face in the barred “window” of the trap, she would charge the end of it. We liked that about her. It meant she didn’t want to be around humans, which meant she’d stay out of trouble. A perfect girl for the augmentation program.
Heather introduces her new Karilian pups to the augmentation bear.
Tim and I contacted biologists Wayne Kaseworm of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Kim Annis, Bear Conflict Specialist out of Libby. We asked if they would be willing to come over to us from Libby in order to take her back with them. That way they would be able to apply the ear tags and tattoo to the bear that we usually do not do. They agreed and would be out by 6, which was 4 hours away. Derek, too, was on his was from Thompson Falls where he was doing some work. With 4 hours to kill, Tim and I ran back down to Condon and re baited the trap we caught the 600 pound male in. We were back just in time for everyone to arrive for the collaring.
Heather Reich, Derek Reich, Wayne Kaseworm, Kim Annis and
Tim Manley worked up the 2009 Augmentation Female
prior to her release near Spar Lake, MT.
I was in charge of the chemical immobilization and hit her for a 350 pound bear. Once she was down, we figured her weight for 325 pounds. The first thing we did was confirm that she was not lactating, which she was not. Then we checked her age and figured she was about 8-10 years old. Wayne was happy with her age for augmentation. We then confirmed, by looking for a microchip, that she was not a bear that had been handled before in case she was a management bear. She had no identification chip, so we were the first humans to handle her. This was all we needed to make sure she qualified for the augmentation project!!!!!
She is a very healthy bear, a great weight for this time of year and had a good layer of fat on her. Hopefully she bred with spring and will come out of her den with cubs and further augment the population for us! Only time will tell, she is now in the hands of Kim and Wayne, who will keep track of her movements and watch for cubs next spring. Her collar is due to drop off in 2012, so there’s plenty of time to watch her. She was released near Spar Lake in the Cabinet mountains, but due to time issues none of us were on hand for the release.
On Friday the 18th Tim Manley flew again and we had planned on going to start pulling our trap line. However, with hyperphagia comes conflict and we got a call from a business that had an old cargo truck broken into. They had the best intentions of hauling the broken down truck to the dump along with garbage, but a month later the truck was still there with all of the garbage in it and a black bear just couldn’t resist it and broke in to the cargo area. Tim, Derek and I assisted them in emptying out the truck and putting the garbage into three pickup trucks, including Tim Manley’s state rig. We then took the load down to Columbia Falls where it was emptied into their garbage bins.
On Saturday Derek and I went up and started pulling out our traps. One of the culvert traps had all of its tires (spare included) flattened by one of the subadult males who got bored when he ate all of the bait. So we had to change out those tires. On Sunday the 20th Tim and Derek went up and pulled out the last two traps. None of us had taken a day off in three weeks, so I took advantage of the time to get caught up on three weeks of house cleaning, three weeks of laundry that had piled up and groceries we hadn’t had for weeks.
And today…Monday, September 21st, Derek and I took a day off!!!!!!!
Now our contract switches over from the augmentation project to dealing with bear conflict.
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