Officials take bold steps to prevent grizzly bear encounters: 'Economic burden that comes with sharing landscapes with large carnivores'
Montana is home to a particularly important 8-foot, 800-pound keystone species that stakeholders are joining forces to safeguard while protecting ranches and humans too. According to early-May reporting from the state's NonStop Local, $2.25 million in federal funds will be invested in local organizations to help reduce dangerous and costly wildlife encounters.
The omnivorous grizzlies have almost no natural predators except for humans. Their North American population began to decline rapidly when settlers colonized the West throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. For sport, for profit, and to protect growing livestock counts, grizzlies were hunted in droves.
By 1975, they'd been almost entirely wiped out in the region, per the University of Montana's Grizzly Bear Recovery Program, and grizzlies were placed on the endangered species list in the contiguous United States.
"Today they remain in only about 6% of their original range," according to the Center for Biological Diversity. "Just a few of the threats faced by these persecuted predators are loss of major food sources due to climate change, genetic isolation, and, primarily, increased human-caused mortality."
Wildlife encounters are well-known to pose dangers to animals and to humans. Preventing such interactions — often exacerbated by human development pushing into animal habitats and by climate changes that force animals on the move — can help to keep everyone safe while mindful of both ecosystem balance and ranchers' bottom lines, as they worry for their livestock and livelihoods.
It's certainly critical to protect an endangered species that, if gone, would throw the entire ecosystem out of order, but ranchers and homeowners have expressed intense frustration in managing grizzly encounters. "There's an economic burden that comes with sharing landscapes with large carnivores," Nathan Owens, policy director at Heart of the Rockies Initiative, told NonStop Local.
Heart of the Rockies will be administering the $2.25 million in federal money that comes as an allocation from the Department of the Interior and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The funding is set to support an effort unfolding over the course of three years and across 1.2 million acres "to support grizzly bear conflict prevention efforts like range riding, carcass pickup, electric fencing, bear resistant garbage infrastructure, and outreach and education efforts," according to Owens.
Issues regarding grizzly bears have been contentious in Montana in the past. For example, a 2020 University of Montana survey found that about half of Montanans support enough hunting to achieve a population target, while 17% said grizzlies should never be hunted. And the Montana Free Press previously reported that, in 2018, Tribes in the state signed a formal letter in opposition to neighboring Wyoming's plans to initiate a hunting season for grizzly bears.
Owens noted that the funds would be dispersed to multiple communities and groups across the state, including two Tribes.
The announcement comes as some conservation organizations across the country have experienced uncertainty with federal funding in 2025. The Blackfoot Challenge, one of the groups set to help protect grizzlies and farmers in the region, faced a temporary freeze before it was resolved earlier this year.
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"That gives us the ability to continue on with our mission," Blackfoot Challenge executive director Seth Wilson told NonStop Local. "Until we knew more about our federal funds, we would only be able to construct one grizzly bear fence that would keep newborn livestock safe from grizzly bears. We're now able to do four fences this season."
Plans for animal management that take into account the welfare of vulnerable species and the society built up around them can help to protect both, ensuring strong, biodiverse ecosystems and leading to a more environmentally friendly future. In addition to nurturing biodiversity in our own yards and neighborhoods, voicing support for pro-environment policies can make a difference.
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