North Fork looks to become ‘Bear Smart’
"Oatey" a North Fork grizzly.
By CHRIS PETERSON
Hungry Horse News
Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks said it killed an old grizzly bear up the North Fork late last month that was getting too close to people and homes looking for food.
The bear was estimated to be about 22 years old, the agency said in a release.
It’s the first bear to be killed for management reasons this year in the North Fork.
The community is taking steps to keep it that way.
The North Fork Preservation Association recently created the Polebridge Bear Smart Community program, which is modeled after similar efforts in Canada and more locally, the Swan Valley community.
The effort comes after the death of Monica and her cubs last fall. Monica was a productive North Fork sow grizzly that was killed by wildlife managers after she and her cubs repeatedly got into garbage and unsecured human foods, at one point ripping open a camper that had apparently been abandoned and had food left to rot inside.
This year, community leaders are taking pains to educate the public and new employees in the North Fork about bears, bear safety and how to properly store food and dispose of garbage in bear country.
“It was clear people weren’t doing what they needed to do,” Suzanne Daniell Hildner, secretary of the association, said last week.
But rather than do a lot of finger pointing, the association took a proactive approach, by holding bear training seminars last week along with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear management specialist Justine Vallieres.