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What’s New in the Cabinet-Yaak Region?
Sept 2008
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- Update on the Cabinet Mountains Augmentation Grizzly Bears: 9/1/08
Through the use of remote camera systems, Montana, Fish, Wildlife & Parks has been improving and refining augmentation trapping efforts since 2007. The remote cameras are used to selectively ‘target’ suitable bears that will be released in the Cabinet Mountains as part of the population augmentation program and used to prevent ‘non-target’ bears, such as males and black bears. Young female grizzly bears with no dependent young or history of human-conflicts are considered suitable for the program. However, in 2007 no suitable females were captured. Therefore, no bears were released in the Cabinet Mountains as part of the augmentation program in 2007.
In 2008, two young female grizzly bears were released in the Cabinet Mountains as part of the population augmentation program. Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks captured both bears in the Flathead River drainage; one in the North Fork and one in the Swan River. The first female, approximately 2-3 years old, was released in the Cabinet Mountains on July 24, 2008. The second female, approximately 3-4 years old, was released on August 8, 2008. Both females were released near Snake Creek Pass in the East Fork of the Bull River and were fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) radio collars. The bears are monitored by aircraft conducted the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as part of ongoing grizzly bear monitoring and research activities in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem.
Since their release, the first female has been monitored as far north as the Middle Fork of the Bull River and as far south as Government Mountain. The second bear had moved even further south and at one point crossed the Clark Fork River between the Bull River and Noxon. She has since returned to the Cabinet Mountains and most recently was located on Government Mountain.
Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks is continuing to trap in the Flathead area for another young female bear that could be released in the Cabinet Mountains in 2008. The possibility of a releasing a third augmentation bear is being considered this year because the huckleberry crop appears to be exceptional and may be the best in the last 10-15 years.
The two other bears released in the Cabinet Mountains, one in 2005 and one in 2006, have both lost their collars. The first lost her collar in September 2007 and the second lost her collar in August 2008. The cotton spacers on both collars rotted away, causing them to fall off as designed.
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