It was either last sunday week or the week before that the CBS 60 minutes show had an article on montana grizzlies. A farmer's drone showed 18 grizzlies in his 100 acre corn field one night eating his corn, most likely the ear corn. He was right next to a national forest. I have seen what a heavy population of raccoons can do to a small corn field(5 acres) so bears must be really desvastating.

800 Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, and I would guess about 500-1000 more in the rest of Montana, and another 200 in the rest of Wyoming.

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Originally posted by jkrolan:
It was either last sunday week or the week before that the CBS 60 minutes show had an article on montana grizzlies. A farmer's drone showed 18 grizzlies in his 100 acre corn field one night eating his corn, most likely the ear corn. He was right next to a national forest. I have seen what a heavy population of raccoons can do to a small corn field(5 acres) so bears must be really desvastating.

Bears can destroy many acres in a corn, oats, wheat field.

They destroy about 10 times what they eat. I have seen the damage first hand.

They knock down huge areas of the crop.

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Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:
800 Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, and I would guess about 500-1000 more in the rest of Montana, and another 200 in the rest of Wyoming.

There's less than 200 within YNP. There's another 500+ in the surrounding areas, which encompass about 36K sq. miles or 22 MILLION acres in northwestern WY, southwestern MT & eastern ID.

There's another population in far northern MT (Glacier/Waterton NP area & ID.

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Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:

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Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:
800 Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, and I would guess about 500-1000 more in the rest of Montana, and another 200 in the rest of Wyoming.

There's less than 200 within YNP. There's another 500+ in the surrounding areas, which encompass about 36K sq. miles or 22 MILLION acres in northwestern WY, southwestern MT & eastern ID.

There's another population in far northern MT (Glacier/Waterton NP area & ID.

I was in Yellowstone in June and was talking with a biologist while we were watching a well known grizzly sow and her cub. He told me the official estimate is around 200 grizzlies in Yellowstone, but unofficially it’s thought to be closer to 500. Straight out of the mouth of a Yellowstone bear biologist.

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Originally posted by DLS:


I was in Yellowstone in June and was talking with a biologist while we were watching a well known grizzly sow and her cub. He told me the official estimate is around 200 grizzlies in Yellowstone, but unofficially it’s thought to be closer to 500. Straight out of the mouth of a Yellowstone bear biologist.

Well, I guess if your bear biologist said so, it's true. Was it Frank van Manen, Kerry Gunther or Mark Haroldson?

Then again...Yellowstone PARK is not large enough to support 500 grizzly bears in addition to the black bear population.The largest part of the population is outside the park boundaries in the area known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosytem. Just like the "well known grizzly sow," I suspect the interagency team that monitors & numbers the bears within the park know within a very few of the those living there to not have an 'unofficial' number, especially one that's 2 1/2 times the actual count.

Here's some interesting -- albeit technical & boring -- reading on methods used to 'count' grizzlies.

Estimates for Population Monitoring of Grizzly

Although somewhat dated, more interesting reads...
USGS Grizzly Bear Boundary Layers

They have been under estimating the bear and wolf population for years.

Knowing full well it is harder to push the agenda if the true numbers are known.

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Originally posted by p dog shooter:
They have been under estimating the bear and wolf population for years.

Knowing full well it is harder to push the agenda if the true numbers are known.

How do you know that??

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Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:

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Originally posted by DLS:


I was in Yellowstone in June and was talking with a biologist while we were watching a well known grizzly sow and her cub. He told me the official estimate is around 200 grizzlies in Yellowstone, but unofficially it’s thought to be closer to 500. Straight out of the mouth of a Yellowstone bear biologist.

Well, I guess if your bear biologist said so, it's true. Was it Frank van Manen, Kerry Gunther or Mark Haroldson?

Then again...Yellowstone PARK is not large enough to support 500 grizzly bears in addition to the black bear population.The largest part of the population is outside the park boundaries in the area known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosytem. Just like the "well known grizzly sow," I suspect the interagency team that monitors & numbers the bears within the park know within a very few of the those living there to not have an 'unofficial' number, especially one that's 2 1/2 times the actual count.

I have no recollection of the guy’s name. He was wearing a Park Service uniform, told me he grew up in Gardner and has worked for the park since graduating college. Guy was probably 35-40. As for the well known grizzly, it was one they’ve named “Raspberry”, a sow that I was told mostly lives near the shore of Yellowstone Lake, east of the hotel. I think naming wildlife is dumb, so didn’t mention her name because I think calling any grizzly Raspberry is just plain stupid. And, now that you mention it, yes I do think he was referring to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

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Originally posted by DLS:
I have no recollection of the guy’s name. He was wearing a Park Service uniform, told me he grew up in Gardner and has worked for the park since graduating college. Guy was probably 35-40. As for the well known grizzly, it was one they’ve named “Raspberry”, a sow that I was told mostly lives near the shore of Yellowstone Lake, east of the hotel. I think naming wildlife is dumb, so didn’t mention her name because I think calling any grizzly Raspberry is just plain stupid. And, now that you mention it, yes I do think he was referring to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

Kerry Gunther is the YNP biologist based in Mammoth. He's a mid-westerner but has worked for USNPS at YNP for many years. He's probably near 60 or so now. I interviewed him way back in 2010-11, right after two people had been killed. Could be your guy was one of his assistants or merely a park ranger. The other two I mentioned are members of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team.

The grizzlies in & around Yellowstone/Grand Teton parks are probably the must studied critters in the world akin to condors & lower-48 wolves. Most of the park area bears have at least a number. Some like Raspberry, that has hung out near the lake since her days as a cub nearly two decades ago, have names just like pets. Although maybe some folks just call their Labs & shorthairs, 'dog' or 'Hey, you.' Whether it's a name or number, it provides an easy way for researchers to distinguish one from the other. And of course, many of the bears wear radio transmitters so its easy to keep tabs on them. I don't have a problem with that but do with anthropomorphism -- attributing human characteristics/emotions to an animal.

This is a really good but long read written in 2017 by a bunch of grizzly bear experts :

Yellowstone Grizzlies

Two hundred does seem really low in Yellowstone when I've always heard there were 400 to 500.

Here are few links for factual information. The first one has lots of links to click around on for various data reports, maps, etc. Have fun.

https://www.fws.gov/mountain-p...e/es/grizzlyBear.php

https://www.fws.gov/mountain-p...RP_Annual-Report.pdf

https://www.fws.gov/mountain-p...Cubs-of-the-Year.pdf

https://www.fws.gov/mountain-p...YE%20Grizzly-Map.pdf

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Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:

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Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:
800 Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, and I would guess about 500-1000 more in the rest of Montana, and another 200 in the rest of Wyoming.

There's less than 200 within YNP. There's another 500+ in the surrounding areas, which encompass about 36K sq. miles or 22 MILLION acres in northwestern WY, southwestern MT & eastern ID.

There's another population in far northern MT (Glacier/Waterton NP area & ID.

They used relocate the problem grizzlies in Glacier to Kintla lake. Camped there once. Don't!

One evening a couple of years ago, I counted 11 grizzly bears visible at one time just north of YNP.

They don’t really know for sure just like the wolves, there is too many and they need to be thinned out a bit and become fearful of man again.

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They used relocate the problem grizzlies in Glacier to Kintla lake. Camped there once. Don't!

Or drop them off in the BOB Marshall.

spent a lot of time there from 1969 to 1980. Lovely place, bring your gun.

Can not say how many in Montana, but can say that there are two less in Alaska!
Friend of mine took two with his muzzle loader a couple days ago and headed back to Texas now. Looking forward to some good campfire tales soon.

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Originally posted by chuck375:
spent a lot of time there from 1969 to 1980. Lovely place, bring your gun.

Had some great fishing in there.

My first trip my two buddies and I were the only ones carrying firearms.

The next year they had a mauling and everybody was.

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Originally posted by chuck375:
spent a lot of time there from 1969 to 1980. Lovely place, bring your gun.

Me in the BOB near Sunburst Lake, circa 1987



Sunburst Lake

Looks like beautiful country

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Originally posted by Buglemintoday:
Looks like beautiful country

Yup. The water was so clear, we could see the big cutthroats swimming at about 15 feet deep. And there were lots of these in the hills, too....

Went into Sunburst Lake, on the way in and out over picture ridge.

That was a steep climb.

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Originally posted by p dog shooter:
Went into Sunburst Lake, on the way in and out over picture ridge.

That was a steep climb.

Did you hike in?

Me landing a native cutthroat at Sunburst Lake, Bob Marshall WA, MT.

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Did you hike in?

Yes

Census of these bears is an inexact science that is still developing. In the Upper Ruby/Gravelly complex, adjacent to Yellowstone, every drainage has a bear or bears. There was an incident two summers ago when cattle fed on poisonous weeds and several died. Thirteen grizzlies were seen at one time in this pasture. IMO there are many more than even the high end of the estimates.

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Originally posted by crane:
Census of these bears is an inexact science that is still developing. In the Upper Ruby/Gravelly complex, adjacent to Yellowstone, every drainage has a bear or bears. There was an incident two summers ago when cattle fed on poisonous weeds and several died. Thirteen grizzlies were seen at one time in this pasture. IMO there are many more than even the high end of the estimates.

I wrote about an incident like that in my column for Rocky Mt. G&F magazine about 5-6 years ago. It's on a PC with kaput power supply. I don't recall the location, but a Mt.G&F biologist was tracking a collared bear & came upon the group. He thought it was mostly all a family of related sows with cubs. I don't remember any mention of dead cattle.

You wrote an article 5-6 years ago.

Crane said his happen two years ago I don't think they are the same.

And so what if the were related bears the numbers are the same.

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Originally posted by p dog shooter:
You wrote an article 5-6 years ago.

Crane said his happen two years ago I don't think they are the same.

And so what if the were related bears the numbers are the same.

Perhaps not. The incident I wrote about was like in 2015-16. So on a scale of 1-10, what is the likelihood of 13 grizzlies being spotted at the same time twice is???

I'll do a bit of reserach on it in a bit. I'm snowed under right now trying to get some ribs & salmon ready for the smoker.

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Originally posted by jkrolan:
Two hundred does seem really low in Yellowstone when I've always heard there were 400 to 500.

Our biologist have been tracking Grizzlies in our province. They found that the bears, especially males, have huge territories. The bears in Waterton, Glacier parks wander between Alberta, BC and into the US. They get around.

Grizz

Numbers are all according to food supply just like any predator so it’s really hard to know exact numbers in all these mountain ranges
We be had several this Summer in Bitterroot wandering around which means traditional areas are getting over capacity so they start venturing out more and more

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Originally posted by jkrolan:
It was either last sunday week or the week before that the CBS 60 minutes show had an article on montana grizzlies. A farmer's drone showed 18 grizzlies in his 100 acre corn field one night eating his corn, most likely the ear corn. He was right next to a national forest. I have seen what a heavy population of raccoons can do to a small corn field(5 acres) so bears must be really desvastating.

Answer: Not enough

Wyoming is claiming their are 1000 bears in the state.

This is their most recent number off of their new lawsuit against the USF&W to be able to manage the bears.

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Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:
Wyoming is claiming their are 1000 bears in the state.

This is their most recent number off of their new lawsuit against the USF&W to be able to manage the bears.

Direst quote from the article:

"Grizzly numbers reached federal recovery goals in 2003, Gordon said, and now exceed 1,000 bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Wyoming has spent some $52 million over 46 years ensuring grizzly bear conservation, he said.

The petition, to be filed in coming weeks, will be specific to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of bruins and the states of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, Gordon said."

GYE....

This kind of confirms the figure given in the last reply I put here with the quote from the governor:

Direst quote from the article:

"Grizzly numbers reached federal recovery goals in 2003, Gordon said, and now exceed 1,000 bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Wyoming has spent some $52 million over 46 years ensuring grizzly bear conservation, he said.

New Monitoring Methods Reveal Record Number of Yellowstone Grizzlies

A snippet from the above:

Grizzly bears are thriving in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and new monitoring methods reveal a record high number of grizzlies living in the region. While biologists have kept a close tab on the species as their populations have risen and their range has expanded in recent years, the new data show that perhaps experts have been under-counting bears all along.

Putting the numbers in context, last year’s estimated population was around 727 animals, while this year’s estimate is closer to 1,069. This would mark the highest number of grizzly bears reported in the GYE since counting began in the 1970’s............

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the new data show that perhaps experts have been under-counting bears all along.

What have we been saying

That happened in Northern ecosystem ( Bob Marshall and surrounding ranges
They did the DNA studies probably hoping numbers were low and came up with over thousand Griz and then it got quiet

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ly

You need to give some to Colorado, we don't have any /cry I would start in the Boulder area

The incident took place in 2019. Cattle in the Lobo Mesa pasture in the Gravelly Range got into a stand of Larkspur. They lost a bunch of cattle. There were 13 grizzly bears observed at one time. The bears in that area seem dependent on Columbian ground squirrels for a significant portion of their food base. There are diggings all over. Just this past summer the stockmen were granted at least 2 kill permits after the Feds killed one. They have no earthly idea how many bears are in that country. After several spooky incidents, we have given up archery elk in a few of the drainages. Too much risk. And the inevitable inquisition that would surely follow.