Glacier Park goat researcher now a bear manager in Conrad

The man who studied mountain goats and grizzly bears in and around Logan Pass now will try to keep grizzly bears out of harm’s way in Central Montana.

University of Montana graduate student Wesley Sarmento did groundbreaking research in Glacier Park for three years studying goats and how they reacted to humans at the pass. This week he was named a bear management specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. He will work out of Conrad, a small farming town north of Great Falls.

Most mammals in Glacier, including mountain goats, are salt deficient. Nannies need minerals and salts for milk production and hair, bone and horn growth. The lush green alpine plants they eat is low in natural mineral content.

In a normal mountain goat environment, they’d travel to natural mineral licks - limestone deposits in the soil. Goats and other ungulates have been known to travel for miles to get to these places, taught the routes by hundreds of years of generations of furry kin.

But at Logan Pass, the goats have been get their salt and minerals from a completely unnatural source — human sweat, urine and car antifreeze, Sarmento’s study found.

The study also looked at grizzly bear movements and mountain goat reactions to them. The goats near Logan Pass used human presence as a “shield” of sorts against bears. When people are around, the bears avoid the pass. The goats learned this and would travel far away from normal escape routes like cliffs in order to forage. But in the summer of 2015 the pass was closed for several days when the Reynolds Creek Fire burned the east side of the Park. Without people, Sarmento noted, the grizzlies moved back to the pass and the goats quickly went back to the cliffs.

Glacier routinely uses aversive techniques to ward off bears from people and Sarmento said the same techniques should prove useful on the plains bears.

“The work I did in Glacier should transfer over pretty well,” Sarmento said.

As the grizzly bear population continues to grow, bears on the Rocky Mountain Front are moving farther and farther east each year. A male grizzly was recently found in the Little Belt Mountains near White Sulphur Springs and this year a pair of bears was found in the Sweetgrass Hills.

The bears generally follow the river drainages out onto the plains. When Lewis and Clark first explored the region, grizzlies were a plains animal. The river valleys are lush with plant food and bears also fed on bison.

Sarmento said he will be working closely with farmers and ranchers. The average spread is about 2,000 acres, he noted. He said he wants to use aversive techniques to ward off bears, like bear dogs and other methods.

The job is also educational, he noted. Unlike west of the Divide, where communities have been living with bears for years, grizzlies on the plains are a relatively new facet of life. It will take some work to make sure people are “bear aware” and taking precautions like securing garbage, using electric fencing near livestock and carrying bear spray when in bear habitat.

Sarmento, 30, said he’s looking forward to the challenge. Plus he’s close to home — his mother is Blackfeet.

“It will be nice to stay in the area,” he said.