A rancher near Choteau, Montana, caught video of six grizzlies strolling across his calving lot behind his barn late Monday, and said there were as many as seven bears on his property that night.
The next morning, rancher Neal Collins said agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed as many as 10 grizzlies out of patches of brush across the road from his place.
Collins said no people or livestock were attacked by the bears on his place, and FWP used non-lethal “cracker” shotgun shells to scare off the bears.
A ‘Herd’ Of Grizzlies
Sparky Wallace, a friend of Collins who also lives near Choteau, somewhat humorously described the group of grizzlies as a “herd.”
He told Cowboy State Daily he and some of his neighbors have had encounters with multiple bears, as the number of grizzlies out on the prairie has steadily increased.
Chad White, a bear management specialist with Montana FWP, said the bears on Collins’ property were probably a “couple of family groups that have been hanging out in the area.”
Meaning, they were likely two related adult females such as “a mother and daughter” and their cubs, White said.
The Choteau area has been busy with bear activity this spring and summer. The bears wander from the Rocky Mountain Front onto the prairie along the Teton River, which flows past Choteau.
The bears might be feeding on green vegetation and other natural food sources, then taking shelter in brush patches.
“It may be that he (Collins) has the natural shelter for day bedding and they were traveling around the area,” White said.
White said the FWP bear manager responding to Collins’ call told him as many as 10 grizzlies fled once the hazing stared.
FWP personnel fired cracker shells into the brush where the bears were holed up. Cracker shells fire a small explosive charge with a delayed fuse, designed to explode in the air and ward off predators such as bears and wolves.
“The six or seven bears in the family groups ran off in one direction, and two or three more ran off in another direction,” he said.
It’s not known where the other two or three bears might have come from, White added.
Alarm Barks
Collins said he was first alerted to the bears’ presence Monday when one of his dogs started frantically barking at about 9:30 p.m.
“We’ve got this one dog that’s supposed to be a cow dog, but she’s really not,” he said. “She was just barking, barking, barking. She barks on occasion, but not like that.”
He said he stepped outside to investigate and saw a “flash of a bear.”
So, he immediately went back into his house, shooing the dog inside with him.
A camera he has mounted on the backside of his barn caught video and photos of the bears.
‘You Get Immune To It’
Collins’ ranch is about 35 miles out on the prairie from the Rocky Mountain front.
Grizzlies are usually associated with mountain habitat. However, they were originally a Great Plains species, and were driven into the mountains as the West was settled.
Grizzlies have been growing in number and expanding their range in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho in recent decades. In Montana, they’ve been pushing ever-farther onto the prairies.
Collins said his father was in his 70s before he ever saw a grizzly anywhere near Choteau. But the bears have become a common sight of late.
When asked if having the bears around worried him, Collins said, “I suppose, but you get immune to it.”
Even so, he’s not happy about the growing number of prairie grizzlies.
“There here, even though I don’t want them here,” he said.
In Wyoming, grizzlies attacking cattle is frequently listed as the leading cause of human-bear conflict.
Collins said he hasn’t lost any livestock to bears yet.
"Even so, they sure don’t help them (the cattle) even if they don’t kill them,” he said. "They move through the cattle herd and stir them up.”
Bird Hunting Gets Wild
North-central Montana is a bird hunter’s paradise. And in decades past, grizzlies would have been the furthest things from bird hunters’ minds.
That’s not the case any longer. In 2023, run-ins were reported between bird and whitetail deer hunters in separate incidents.
Those occurred in the vicinity of the Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area. It’s between Choteau and Fairfield, Montana, about 40 miles west of Great Falls.
Collins said that several years ago, a bird hunter had to shoot and kill a charging grizzly across the road from his place.
“He ended up with a scratch on his arm, because the last shot was right at the end of the gun barrel,” he said.
Wallace, a horse trainer and saddle maker, said he’s run into multiple grizzlies while bird hunting.
“I hunt ducks a lot. And even on the little prairie potholes out here, you’ve got to walk in there loaded and ready for bears,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
