Coexistence with Bears at McCleery Ranch
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
By Elly Gore, Seasonal McCleery Facilities & Animal Care Associate
Wolf Haven’s McCleery Ranch is home to a wild community of carnivores and mesocarnivores, not just the resident wolves! We often find trails of coyotes trotting the sanctuary perimeter and bobcat scat in the deep washes. In nearby areas, we’ve discovered tracks and signs of mountain lions, as well as both grizzly and black bears. But today, we found the first evidence this season of bears on the McCleery Ranch property itself: a large pile of partially-digested seeds, grass, and fur… aka bear scat! It’s exciting to live on a landscape utilized by so many remarkable creatures, but it does come with an added responsibility of prioritizing the well-being of these omnivores.
It is amazing to think that an animal as large as a grizzly bear can live in the sagebrush steppe habitat that the ranch is located on. It’s hot and dry, and the landscape consists of sage and cacti with very few trees. We often think of grizzly bears as forest-dwelling creatures, but the truth is that they were forced into the mountains and forests by extirpation campaigns in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The “killer claws” and massive shoulder humps that set them apart from black bears? Those are the unique survival tools grizzly bears developed to survive in open plains and deserts. They specialize in digging; their long claws with fused toes on massive paws act as sturdy shovels, while the shoulder hump provides extra muscle for a powerful scoop. These excavation specialists can dig up food like bulbs, shoots, and ants, as well as create shelter in open landscapes. Across the state of Montana, wildlife professionals are documenting grizzly bears expanding beyond heavily forested environments and recolonizing plains landscapes, much like the McCleery Ranch ecotype. The expansion of grizzly bears across the greater landscape means we need to change some of the ways we operate the sanctuary, both for our protection and for the local wildlife.
While large carnivores are an important part of many ecosystems, and coming across evidence of their presence can be thrilling, they can be quite dangerous and destructive. In rural landscapes, wolves and bears can depredate on livestock and will opportunistically scavenge on naturally deceased cattle year-round.
Uncharacteristic of wolves, a bear’s insistent need to pack on 15 to 30% of their body weight between the spring and fall seasons can lend to some riskier foraging behaviors. Where a food source or attractant is detected, bears have been known to break into cars, sheds, and chicken coups. In extreme cases, habituated bears can break into homes, and may cause human injuries.
Habituation occurs when bears find a food “reward”, also known as an attractant, near anthropogenic sources. While they might normally stay clear of humans, if there is a reward big enough to draw them in, they may be brave enough to investigate it. If they successfully obtain a chicken or two, dog food on your porch, or even a tasty morsel from your trash bin, they may start coming back for more and ultimately develop a habit of perusing the neighbors’ properties as well. These habituated bears become “problem” or “conflict” bears, and if the conflict is not addressed promptly, bear behavior may escalate to a point where they need to be removed.
The best way to mitigate such conflict is to be proactive in securing attractants. Fortunately, bears are relatively easy to deter with the non-lethal application of electric fencing. They use the same incredible memory that allows them to locate previous food sources to also avoid things that have startled them. If a bear receives a zap from an electrified dumpster, it could prevent them from ever going near a dumpster again. Furthermore, mother bears pass on foraging behavior and knowledge of repetitive high-caloric locations to their cubs, so if we are consistent with managing bear attractants, we can leverage their social learning to our advantage. State and local wildlife agencies are essential to managing predator conflict, but private land managers are the true frontline.
As you can imagine, on a wolf sanctuary, we have a bear attractant buffet: trash bins, compost piles, a freezer full of meat, and inevitable meat and bone scraps that need to be disposed of every week. While we love finding bear tracks and giant scats around the property, we don’t want to wake up to our six-yard dumpster flipped upside down with trash scattered everywhere. So to establish healthy relationship boundaries, Wolf Haven staff have partnered with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks’ Region 5 (FWP) bear management team, and Bear Awareness Gardiner, to build a small solar-powered electric fence roughly a mile from the facilities and sanctuary. Wolf Haven also utilized the Defenders of Wildlife Electric Fence Incentive Program to help cover 50% of the cost of materials. We now haul all of our house compost, bones, and meat scraps out to this protected area, rather than filling the dumpster near the housing complex with these incredibly smelly attractants. The fence is a simple design that follows FWP’s Electric Fence Guidelines, with smooth wires low enough to prevent a large animal from crawling under and high enough to prevent one from climbing over.
With this waste disposal method, we avoid having unnecessary attractants in our immediate vicinity. If a bear does come up to check out the banana peel in our compost, they will get a quick zap and likely move on for good. That brief moment of discomfort will allow the bear to continue living their best life safely away from humans, avoiding the need for more drastic intervention.
By continuing to be diligent with our attractants, McCleery Ranch can be a sanctuary for all kinds of wildlife returning to their original landscapes. We are grateful to live in a time where we can coexist with carnivores, but true coexistence requires resources, communication, and proactive effort from all of us. In some communities, finding the resources to manage human-wildlife conflict is extremely difficult, but successful conflict mitigation is an ongoing mission across many communities and diverse landscapes.
For more information, we encourage you to explore Wolf Haven’s collaborative conflict mitigation efforts as part of the Wolf Advisory Group for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as our formation of the Wolf Wise Communities program.
