Yellowstone grizzly recovery could be entering its most challenging phase yet as bears continue to push past national forest boundaries, onto private land increasingly being converted into housing developments.
Ray Rasker lives in Bozeman and is the executive director of Headwaters Economics, a research firm that focuses on socioeconomic trends in the American West. Rasker's hometown is one of the centers of the booming ranchette economy. "I was in a coffee shop on Main Street yesterday," he says, "and practically everyone around me was a builder or land developer from out of town."
Groups like the Trust for Public Land and the Nature Conservancy are scrambling to negotiate conservation easements, which provide cash payments to ranchers in exchange for agreements to limit development of their land. "It's an epic struggle to keep these big ranches from being developed into twenties," says Alex Diekmann of the Trust for Public Land. In 2006 Diekmann completed a $2 million deal for an easement on a 1,500-acre Madison Valley ranch adjacent to a national forest and a wilderness area. "A lot of ranchers can't make it just running cattle," he adds. "Their land is worth millions, so they end up doing what a lot of people would do -- selling."
Despite all these efforts, conflicts are expected to increase, and not only because of new housing, settlers, and the ongoing loss of bear habitat. There is another emerging problem: A region-wide pine beetle infestation, exacerbated by global warming, is killing stands of whitebark pine trees. Whitebark pine nuts are among the Yellowstone grizzlies' primary foods, and they allow the bears to eat and roam at higher elevations. If those trees die, the bears may be forced to look for food closer to ranches and houses on the valley floor.
That's where meetings like the Living With Predators workshop come into play. In years past, grizzly conservationists could walk up to a neighbor's door and talk about the issue. But second-home owners often show up only during the summer, and many have unlisted cell phone numbers.
"It's tough with this churning population," says Primm. "They're coming in with zero knowledge about local predators, and it's hard to find them."
"I've got a new neighbor, real nice guy from Texas," says NRDC's Willcox. "Soon after he moved in, he started building up his private pheasant population. It wasn't long before he had a bear on his property eating pheasant food. He came to Montana for the same reasons the rest of us did -- the open space, the wildlife -- but that connection between pheasant food and dead bears hadn't been made."
With new homeowners, there's no compensation fund or allotment to be bought out. There's only good, old-fashioned education and social pressure. It's a lot like recycling. Bear-proofing works only if it becomes common practice, if those who don't particularly care about grizzlies lock down their garbage and clean their grills simply because that's what everyone else does. During the Living With Predators workshop, Tricia Stabler, who owns a summer house in the Madison Valley, asks Primm about a black bear that recently wandered into her neighbor's kitchen.
"What I'd like you to think about is how that bear knew there was food in that house, or any house," Primm answers. "Some people like bears coming into their yard -- they enjoy sitting back with a gin and tonic and watching a grizzly wander through. But that's a good way to kill that bear." Eventually, he explains, a nuisance bear will be eliminated by state wildlife officers. "We need you to put some peer pressure on those folks," he says.
Graham describes to the group how he scares curious critters away with air horns and cracker shells, nonlethal shotgun shells that deliver a frightening bang. "What you've got to do is haze these animals to keep them out of trouble," he says.
Graham wraps up his pitch with a call to community. "When you scare that bear off your porch, you're not only helping that animal, you're helping me and my cattle and everybody else up and down the valley. This is a community responsibility. If you see a predator sniffing around your property, get on the phone and let your neighbor know.
"When I see a grizzly, I call up Scott and make sure his cows are okay," Graham says, pointing to a rancher sitting in the back. "It's just the neighborly thing to do. We all want to make a living out here. And for me, part of the reason I'm here is to live among these predators. This valley wouldn't be the same without them."
A few days after the workshop, Graham's livestock handlers spotted a full-grown grizzly near a cluster of houses on the ranch. A century ago those cowboys would have loaded their rifles and brought the bear down. Instead, they hollered at the animal and shooed it away toward the hills. The grizzly lumbered up valley, idly grazing, and continued on its way, moving north, away from the safety of Yellowstone and into a still uncertain future.
