Montana bears waking up for spring

Spring is in the air, marked by birds singing and buttercups blooming as the snow melts away. Bears are also waking up from a long winter nap as the weather warms and days grow longer.

Bears adapt to harsh winter conditions and food shortages by entering a dormant state in high-elevation dens. When they emerge from their dens, they mainly feed on spring grasses, roots, insects, and scavenge carcasses of animals killed over the winter. In the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, bears typically "wake up" or leave their dens as early as March 15. 

However, after a warm winter, there have already been reports of grizzly and black bears being active in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks and in the Blackfoot Valley during the first week of March. There is also plenty of food on the landscape, with green grass growing and flowers blooming earlier thanks to the warm weather. Last year’s strong berry crop boosted fat reserves for bears, which typically leads to increases in reproductive success, so expect to see more females with cubs in the area this year.

Spring for humans means we need to remember how to share the landscape with bears again, to prevent conflicts from bears accessing food around homes and/or businesses. Bears can become aggressive and lose their fear of people after receiving food rewards from people and their homes. To keep people and bears safe requires us to secure any food sources around the home.

As opportunistic omnivores, bears are attracted to chickens, bird feeders, compost, barbecues, pet food, and more. Bears have abundant natural food sources, but when smelly and easily accessible foods are available around our homes, they can become addicted to fast and easy meals, like fast food for us. Securing attractants proactively to ensure bears do not obtain a food reward around homes helps keep bears wild and people safe, so bears travel through residential areas without conflicts.

Swan Valley Connections serves the Bigfork area to help ease the burden of making your property safe by offering programs such as free bear-resistant trash cans and free consultations for electric fencing. There are also cost-share programs available through Wildlife Services for electric fencing materials for livestock and Defenders of Wildlife for other attractants. 

Other groups like Vital Ground and People and Carnivores offer free toolkits and checklists to guide homeowners, visitors, residents, and vacation rentals on safe bear-aware practices and securing attractants. You can learn more about these programs and resources, and bear activity at the Spring Bear Wake up Social on April 1st at the Condon Community Hall, and on the Bear in Mind Bigfork website bigfork.org/bear-in-mind.

Spring serves as a reminder for humans to be vigilant in bear-safe practices and securing attractants to share this beautiful and special landscape with bears as they become active again.

Swan Valley Bear Resources is a collaborative group that promotes coexistence between humans and bears and provides resources to anyone in the Bigfork and Ferndale communities. Swan Valey Bear Resources loans out bear-resistant garbage containers for free indefinitely and offers a cost-share program for electric fencing around attractants such as small livestock and orchards. We provide free property consultations and will design a fence to suit the needs of the landowner and maintain proper specifications to deter grizzly bears. Swan Valley Connections' trained staff will even install the electric fence, free of charge.

Call 406-754-3137 or email [email protected] to learn more about how you can obtain resources made available to you by Swan Valley Bear Resources.

To report bear sightings or conflicts, contact MT Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) Regional Bear Manager, Erik Wenum, at 406-250-0062.

Special thanks to Heart of the Rockies Initiative, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and federal funding that increase capacity to reduce bear conflicts in the Swan Watershed.