Updates on Missoula's resident grizzly bears

As bears wake up this spring, Missoula residents may think back to the first grizzly sightings a couple of years ago.

A grizzly mother and two cubs were spotted in the North Hills of Missoula in the winter of 2021. The family’s spotting was the first of many grizzly encounters in the coming years.

The following spring, after the sow’s first sighting, the two cubs were trapped outside of Bonner.

Since the mother was nowhere to be seen, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks assumed she died.

One of the cubs was missing a leg and was very sick, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear specialist, James Jonkel, so FWP euthanized the young bear.

The sibling was collared and relocated, but it was later found dead that summer.

Last year, two male grizzlies were spotted in the Missoula area. One was also seen in the North Hills between the Wye and Marshall Canyon.

FWP trapped and collared another grizzly bear in the Miller Creek and Eight Mile Creek area. This spring, however, the male dropped his collar, so they are unsure of his current location.

This year, they’ve located two male grizzlies in the Sapphire area, so Jonkel assumes they are the same bears spotted in Missoula last year.

So far, the grizzly encounters this year have been fairly mellow, according to Jonkel.

“I know we have been getting quite a few grizzly bear reports, mostly people seeing tracks or seeing a bear run across the road, that kind of thing,” he says. “We’ve only had one conflict this year, and that was a calf depredation up in the Helmville area. But other than that, it’s been quiet for Grizzly Bears.”

Jonkel says recently they also had a grizzly unsuccessfully try and get into a chicken coup near Nine Mile.

Due to low snow and rainfall, the predicted dry summer will mean poor growth for natural bear foods, like choke cherries and huckleberries. Jonkel says he expects this to lead to a high concentration of human-bear conflicts this fall.

“We’re starting to see more and more grizzly activity in and around the Missoula area,” Jonkel says.