MISSOULA — Genetics studies of grizzlies in Northwest Montana and northern Idaho are yielding some hopeful results, just as many grizzly bear recovery efforts are being put on hold due to Trump administration cuts.
On Thursday, U.S. Fish and Wildlife bear biologist Wayne Kasworm provided more results from the 2023 genetics sampling in the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk Grizzly recovery areas that has finally shown a few instances of gene flow between populations. In particular, the 2023 data revealed that a male grizzly from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem had traveled to the Yaak region and had sired a cub there.
“This is the first time we’ve detected gene flow going from the NCDE into the Cabinet-Yaak population,” Kasworm said.
Kasworm highlighted two other male bears that also stood out in the 2023 data. One 2-year-old bear had been trapped in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and was translocated to the Cabinets in 2018. After his collar signals showed that he wandered south to the Selway-Bitterroot and back to the Cabinet Mountains, the 2023 genetics data showed that he sired a male cub with a female in the Yaak region in 2021-2022.
The second male migrated from the Purcell Mountains in British Columbia, Canada, to the Yaak region, where he was collared. Since then, he’s sired male offspring in both the Yaak and Cabinet regions.
“This does represent at least some gene flow from the augmentation program and from the Cabinet to the Yaak,” Kasworm said. “And we have gene flow coming down from the Purcells and we have some gene flow that we can detect from the Yaak to the Cabinets.
I’m not here to declare victory, that 'Hey, gene flow is here and everything is great and wonderful.' But, this is an excellent start, and the challenge is to maintain those opportunities over time.”
Those opportunities need to continue because the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population still suffers from too much human-caused mortality. Over the past six years, 13 grizzlies have died due to human influence, resulting in 4.2% total mortality, slightly more than the goal of 4%.
But it’s the deaths of females with cubs that are of greater concern, since the population depends on females to produce and rear cubs. Between 2019 and 2024, seven females died in the Cabinet-Yaak region due to human causes. That’s a mortality rate of 2.3%, significantly higher than the goal of less than 1.2%.
Because five of those females died within the past three years, the population growth rate declined to 1.7% from 2.5% last year.
“We’re well over that sub-quota of female mortality, and that has been a short-term issue for this population,” Kasworm said. “One of the goals of the recovery office and all of the agencies in this meeting today is to do what we can to reduce human-caused mortality where we can through various management actions.”
The genetics surveys use hair traps — wires that snag a bear’s hair as she goes by — and the hair is processed for identifying DNA. But they also have motion-sensing cameras that can photograph bears near the traps even if they don’t leave hair.
Based upon the 2023 DNA from hair samples and photographs, Kasworm has identified a minimum of 58 separate bears in the Cabinet-Yaak region and a minimum of 58 bears in the Selkirk region south of the Canada border. Biologists are still working on trying to figure out how many bears move between the U.S. Selkirks and the Canadian Selkirks so they can get a more accurate population count.
The recovery plan prioritizes maintaining dependable gene flow between the Cabinet-Yaak and other grizzly populations and keeping a sufficient number of breeding females. For that the population size needs to be at least 90-100 bears, so less mortality or more bears are needed.
Over the years, several grizzlies from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem have been translocated to augment the Cabinet-Yaak. Kasworm said the agencies would try to transplant one young female bear to the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem this summer. Kasworm added that in the future, biologists would consider moving males as well.
“We have not done so for a couple of years due to a variety of factors such as we had a bad food year, we had a bad fire year and we had a bad conflict year on the NCDE side where it was difficult for personnel to find time to get out and do the capture work,” Kasworm said. “Typically, we do not start that until into July or so, trying to assess food supply in the Cabinets so that any bear we place there has a good reason to stick around and feed on huckleberries in the Cabinets.”
Demographic statistics — mortality and population growth rates meeting or exceeding recovery goals — indicate the Selkirk population is doing better, possibly because of the connection to Canada.
Aside from human-caused mortality, one of the biggest problems for grizzly recovery this year is a lack of government funding and staff, which Joshua White, incoming Selkirk-Cabinet-Yaak subcommittee chair, called “operational uncertainty.”
In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed a revised grizzly conservation rule that would eliminate the six discrete populations and classify all grizzlies as one population regardless of location. So that could change the management of the Selkirk-Cabinet-Yaak populations. The comment period on the proposed rule closes Friday at midnight.
“I still believe that staying in this paused status - waiting to see how everything is going to play out until we get more clarity - makes sense. But I do think if there’s conversation to be had around that, I think that’s well worth our time today,” White said.
Hilary Cooley, USFWS Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator, said she didn’t know what would happen with the proposed rule once the public comment period closes. Her office lost two of 10 employees to early resignations, including Jennifer Fortin-Noreus, who wrote the species status assessment that was the basis for the recent agency decision to retain protection for grizzly bears. As a result, Fortin-Noreus would have been the one to review all the public comments.
“We have uncertainty. We don’t have a director yet confirmed. So there’s a lot of things that are paused until we have leadership in place to make decisions on what our priorities are and what happens with the proposal. So we don’t know where that’s going to go yet,” Cooley said. “Also, big reorganization plans are going on and they’re not finished yet. So we don’t know what’s going to happen with the grizzly program.
“Along with the uncertainty, we have uncertainty in our budgets too. We’re expecting big reductions,” Cooley said.
Kasworm said he’s not only receiving less funding, but the money he gets from various agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, is taking a long time to get through the system to where he can use it. So he’s having to make some tough decisions.
“With less funding, I’m faced with some decisions here: what can we do and what are some of the things that we look at to prioritize things. I’m looking at trying to prioritize things based upon the biological status,” Kasworm said. “You heard me mention the mortality in the Cabinet-Yaak population. Given the relative size, the smaller numbers in the Cabinet Yaak, I’m proposing some priority in the Cabinet-Yaak and trying to maintain what I can there and possibly dropping back some of the effort in the Selkirks.”
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.
