Grizzly population objectives topic of four meetings

The first of four meetings to gather public comment on the state’s future grizzly bear management plans for northwestern and northcentral Montana are scheduled this week in Great Falls and Conrad.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is hosting the meetings, the first of which is at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 18) at Great Falls College-MSU, 2100 16th Ave. S.

At issue is maintaining the grizzly bear population in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, after delisting.

The population is now more than 1,000 bears and the state considers the grizzly recovered.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services is expected to come out with a proposal to remove the label of “threatened species” from the NCDE grizzly population before the end of the year, said Gary Bertellotti, supervisor of FWP’s Region 4 in Great Falls.

To delist a species from the Endangered Species Act, adequate regulatory mechanisms must be in place to ensure that it will not once again become threatened or endangered, Bertellotti said.

“The commission is proposing to adopt the demographic objectives of the Conservation Strategy into an administrative rule to demonstrate the state’s commitment to maintaining a recovered population,” Bertellotti said.

Based on the management goals as spelled out in the Conservation Strategy document, the rule proposed by the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission would:

» Maintain a well-distributed grizzly population. That includes females with offspring in at least 21 of 23 bear management units in the Primary Conservation Area (PCA), and females with offspring in at least six of the seven occupancy units in Zone 1, a buffer area around the PCA.

» Maintain a population of more than 800 bears with 90 percent certainty.

» Limit mortality rates of independent females within the demographic monitoring area to no more than 10 percent, and no more than 15 percent for independent males. 

» Monitor movements of NCDE bears into other recovery areas.

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In August, the Fish and Wildlife Commission approved a proposed administrative rule setting the population and mortality objectives for NCDE grizzly bears.

FWP is taking public comments on the proposed rule through Oct. 26. 

The public can submit written comments or testify at the meetings.

The state's population objectives are based on a 327-page document called a Conservation Strategy for grizzly bears that was completed by a team of biologists, researchers and managers from state, tribal and federal agencies.

That strategy will serve as a guide to managing and monitoring the NCDE grizzly bear population and its habitat once federal protections are removed.

The conservation strategy breaks up the ecosystem into four management zones in which management varies. 

The primary conservation area, or PCA, is the current and core grizzly bear recovery zone and is expected to support the highest densities of bears.

The most conservative habitat protections would remain in place in PCA, where 85 percent of the land is public.

Zone 1 provides a buffer around the PCA.

Zone 2 will be managed to provide the opportunity for grizzly bears to move between the NCDE and the Cabinet-Yaak, Bitterroot and Great Yellowstone ecosystems. 

Zone 3 includes lands to the east of the Rocky Mountains and west and north of Great Falls where grizzlies have been expanding for several years. Grizzly bears in these areas, which include a larger human presence, will be managed primarily through conflict response but will not be captured and removed just because they are in the zone, according to the conservation strategy.

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Grizzly bears occupy four ecosystems in the Lower 48.

The NCDE recovery zone has the largest population and is contiguous with a Canadian population. 

The NCDE includes Glacier National Park and parts of the Flathead and Blackfeet Indian reservations, four national forests, five wilderness areas including the Bob Marshall and BLM, state and private lands. 

Hearings also are planned at:

» Conrad High School, 308, S. Illinois St., 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

» Missoula, Holiday Inn Downtown, 600 S. Pattee St., 6:30 p.m. Sept. 26.

» Kalispell, Flathead Valley Community College, Arts and Technology Building, 777 Grandview Drive, 6:30 p.m. Sept. 27.