The Daily Inter Lake

There was a sharp decline in grizzly bear mortality this year in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.

This year's count is 14, down from 24 last year and a record high of 34 in 2004.

Rick Mace, a research biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, reported the numbers Tuesday to the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Subcommittee, a panel of state, federal and tribal land and wildlife managers.

This year's lower numbers is partly due to the relatively quiet year for bear management conflicts as a result of it being a good year for berries and other natural foods in the wild.

Of the 14 known human-caused mortalities, nine were females. There were five illegal killings, three were killed by trains, two died after being captured for research purposes, two were destroyed because of management conflicts, the cause of one death is unknown, and one bear didn't actually die - it was removed from the population to augment the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population.

The last time there were 14 or fewer mortalities was in 1997, when the count was 12.

Most of the discussion about this year's numbers centered on the two male bears that died shortly after being captured and drugged for an ongoing population trend study.

Mace, who is leading that study, said the deaths prompted a review of capture methods and protocol. Forensic analysis of the dead bears did not reveal any direct flaws in those methods.

The bottom line, he said, is that in every type of similar study involving bears there is a small percentage that die. The long-term record for capture-related deaths in the Northern Rockies is below 2 percent, he said.

And it was noted that research projects involving the capture of elk or bighorn sheep have mortality rates ranging from 10 to 30 percent.

Despite there being no obvious flaws in the capture methods, Mace said several changes have been made in an effort to curb future mortality.

Different drugs are being used to allow bears to wake up faster than they did with previously used medication.

When possible, capture teams are using culvert traps more than they are using leg snares, to reduce trauma to bears and improve safety for humans.

Remote sensors are being employed to notify capture teams when a trap has been triggered, allowing for faster responses.

And the teams are more frequently using cameras at trap sites to identify female bears that are the focus of the research, and reduce the incidental capture of black bears and male grizzly bears.

The doors on a culvert trap are locked in an open position until the cameras show that a female is frequenting the site. Then the traps are set and baited to capture the female.