As grizzly bears continue to repopulate Montana’s northern prairies, wildlife managers use variety of methods to push them away from ranches and other potential trouble spots, including shouting at the bears over drone speakers.
The noise of drone propellers alone sometimes isn’t enough to get the grizzlies to scram, said Dave Kemp, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) Conrad-area grizzly bear management specialist.
But “human-related sounds” such as talking or even yelling at the bears over drone speakers has proven effective, he told Cowboy State Daily.
“We need to associate that drone activity with human activity so the bear can make the connection: ‘This drone means people, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it,’” he said.
That, along with other hazing methods, has so far minimized conflict between humans and Montana’s prairie grizzlies, which have pushed all the way into the Missouri Breaks region.
Drones are also occasionally used to haze bears in Wyoming and other states.
Even so, airborne assault tactics failed in May, when a black bear climbed a tree in Golden, Colorado.
The bear didn’t budge, even when wildlife agents and local police tried flying a drone right above it and blasting a classic heavy metal anthem, Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” from the drone’s speakers.
Drones Make Recon Safer For People
Drones have proven useful in grizzly management, Kemp said, and not just for shooing grizzlies away from people’s homes or farmers’ grain bins.
Using drones also allows wildlife managers to track bears’ locations without risking direct contact with the grizzlies.
Drones can be outfitted with equipment to pick up a bear’s heat signature, for instance, he said. That can help field personnel find bears that they might not have been able to locate visibly if the grizzlies are hunkered down in thick brush.
Drones are also used for grizzly recon and occasional hazing in Wyoming, state Game and Fish Large Carnivore Specialist Dan Thompson told Cowboy State Daily.
“We use drones for myriad applications in wildlife, including for grizzly bears,” he said. “Generally speaking, they are most useful from a reconnaissance standpoint to determine where a bear is or is not. Much is employed for the sake of human safety, the public and our crew, which does include hazing.”
In southwest Montana, drones are used to locate grizzlies, but so far haven’t been used to haze them, FWP Region 3 spokesman Morgan Jacobsen told Cowboy State Daily.
“Our bear staff in the region have not used drones as a hazing method for grizzly bears. We do, however, use a drone for human safety,” he said.
“For example, if they're visiting a site with limited visibility, and there's an active trap or a possible carcass or wounded bear, they'll fly a drone with a heat-sensing camera as a precautionary attempt to locate bears near the site before staff enter on foot,” Jacobsen said.
Will Bears Get Used To It?
Any form of wildlife hazing raises the question: What if the animals get used to it and stop being afraid?
Some Colorado ranchers dealing with that state’s reintroduced wolves claim that hazing methods, such as flashing lights, have lost their effectiveness over time.
Given how intelligent grizzlies are, Kemp and Thompson said that the over-use of any technique carries the risk of bears losing their fear of it.
“Like all things, depending on the stimulus and level of use, the animal can become acclimated to the negative stimulus,” Thompson said.
Kemp said he tries to avoid too much repetition when dealing with bears.
“There’s always a thought in the back of my mind to not habituate a bear when I’m trying to haze it to a particular method,” he said.
Mutual Tolerance
There are other ways to scare bears off, such firing rubber shotgun slugs or cracker shells at them. Cracker shells contain a small explosive charge that bursts in the air after being fired from a shotgun.
Kemp said he avoids hazing bears unless he has to. Grizzlies and people seem to get along in his region — so long as stay away from each other.
Human tolerance is key to the bears’ success on the prairies, he said. So, FWP will step in if a bear’s behavior is pushing the boundaries.
“If there is a bear that’s in somebody’s shelter belt, 10 yards from their house, where they have to walk past it every day to get to their pickup, we can’t accept that,” he said. “That kind of behavior is not something we can tolerate, because if we do, we’re going to lose tolerance for grizzly bears.”
There have been numerous conflicts this fall between hunters in the mountainous regions of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, frequently ending with bears being shot and killed by hunters.
That hasn’t been happening on the prairies, where grizzlies like to hang out in patches of brush or creek bottoms.
Kemp said there have been instances of upland bird hunters startling grizzlies in thick cover, but so far, the bears and hunters have walked away unhurt.
Did Some Prairie Grizzlies Come From Wyoming?
Until recently, only lone male grizzlies were spotted in the Missouri Breaks, about as far east as the bears have gone in Montana.
Then a female grizzly and two cubs were spotted in the Missouri Breaks region, an indication that the bears could be settling in there.
Many might think of grizzlies as only a mountain species, but they once thrived across the Great Plains and are well-suited to prairie life.
Kemp said he’s been checking fences for tufts of hair from the female grizzly and her cubs. With luck, those could yield enough DNA samples to trace the bears’ linage.
It’s frequently assumed that Montana’s prairie grizzlies are coming from the Northern Continental Divide population, radiating out from Glacier National Park.
But there’s a possibility that some of the prairie grizzlies can be traced back to the Greater Yellowstone bear population, centered in northwest Wyoming.
“It’s difficult to say,” Kemp said. “It’s hard to know where they come from (without genetic testing).”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
