On-call carcass truck ready to hit the Rocky Mountain Front

Are dead cattle luring bears to your ranch?

Tyler Morrison has it handled.

For the second year, livestock producers on the Rocky Mountain Front and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks have partnered with the Montana Stockgrowers Association, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Montana Wildlife Federation and the National Wildlife Federation to implement a carcass collection and removal program to reduce conflicts between ranchers and grizzly bears.

The partnership will focus particularly on carcass removal on private lands in Teton and Pondera Counties. As winter subsides and calving season ramps up, ranchers need but make one phone call and any dead livestock will be taken out of reach of nosy grizzlies.

Morrison is the guy behind the wheel.

"It's a big issue, the amount of bears creeping out of the mountains and into town," Morrison said

There is no cost to landowners for the service and Morrison will continue making runs until demand falls off or funds are exhausted. The carcasses will be taken to Valier and buried at the dump.

"I'll be starting on call," Morrison said. "It takes three full-size cows or five or six calves to make a load. As things get going we'll maybe establish get a route going and establish days for runs."

The partnering agencies and groups have contributed local outreach efforts such as operating funds, the truck and fuel to get the program off the ground. Morrison hasn't made any runs yet, but he's available as hibernation ends and the need rises.

"This isn't a cure-all for curtailing interactions," Kori Anderson, Montana Stockgrowers Association manager of communications, said. "We're trying to make sure ranchers have another tool at their disposal to decrease the number of interactions with bears."

The removal program supplements efforts by FWP to redistribute animal carcasses near the front where bears can pick on them without endangering other livestock and ranchers. Dead livestock are a significant attractant for grizzlies as they emerge from their winter dens.

Though grizzlies in the Yellowstone Ecosystem were delisted by FWS last year, grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, including the area around the Rocky Mountain Front, are still listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Grizzly populations in the NCDE are conservatively estimated at 1,000.

“As grizzly bears continue to move out from the Rocky Mountain Front and into areas they haven’t occupied, we’ll continue to look for ways to work with local producers, communities and other partners to avoid or reduce conflict,” Martha Williams, FWP director, said in a statement.

For more information or to have carcasses removed, call 595-6689.