Reports of bear sightings on the rise in Montana

June 14, 2012 – GREAT FALLS, MT – Recently, reports of bear sightings around north central Montana have been flooding into sheriff’s offices and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Shannon Gabbard recently spotted a grizzly bear and its yearling near Valier along the Rocky Mountain Front. “I was within 300 yards of them, that was close enough for me. It ended up on the east end of the lake to where the dam is, and then I don’t know how it got across the lake from there,” Gabbard said. Not a week went by before another grizzly had wandered into town, he said. Valier residents and officials say the bear came near the post office and walked into residential areas. Valier isn’t the only town seeing mother grizzly bears and yearlings; some have been spotted near Fort Shaw and Simms in recent weeks. Two yearlings managed to slip into a pen and kill two goats near Simms. “We know that the grizzly bear population is growing at an annual rate of 3 to 4 percent,” FWP bear specialist Mike Madel noted. He said grizzlies are moving out of their habitats along the Rocky Mountain front because of population growth. “These female grizzly bears that come out with their litters are teaching their offspring to do the same and they’re learning new habits and habitats. That’s why we’re getting this new movement of females down the Marias R, the Sun River, down the Teton River,” Madel explained. Madel said there’s no sign yet grizzlies are denning at river bottoms farther from the Rocky Mountain front, but it could be possible in the future. –KAJ18