In Condon, Mont.,
Grizzlies Are Closer
Than People Think

Bear 'M-23' Is on the Prowl
Near a Montana Lake;
Mr. Servheen on the Case

By JOHN J. FIALKA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
August 4, 2004; Page A1

CONDON, Mont. -- Along about Labor Day, a tall, dark stranger known as
"M-23" is likely to take a 40-mile trek south to Seeley Lake. There, peering
out from a wooded, marshy area, he'll see tourists sunning themselves
outside lakefront cabins and motorboats buzzing through the placid waters of
this popular resort.

Chances are, nobody will see M-23, which may be just as well. Weighing 325
pounds and standing more than 6 feet tall, with a distinctive shoulder hump,
he sports long scimitar-like claws and has a face scarred from years of
vicious fights with other male grizzly bears. Though he tends to keep to
himself, he's nobody to mess with.

"We would have never thought to look for him at Seeley because bears haven't
been there before," explains Chris Servheen, a bear expert with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service who spends much of his time here in Montana's
upper Swan Valley, a kind of crossroads for some of the 1,300-plus grizzlies
left in the northwestern U.S.

Mr. Servheen knows where M-23 prowls because he has fitted him and several
other grizzlies with collars containing Global Positioning System receivers.
M-23 is the only bear who has been tracked twice, and one piece of
information stands out: In both 2001 and 2002, M-23 visited Seeley Lake in
late summer.

For a long time, the daily movements of grizzlies were shrouded in mystery.
Known to biologists as Ursus arctos horribilis, grizzlies are notoriously
difficult to track by day and nearly impossible to follow at night. Mr.
Servheen's bear-tracking maps are changing that. They have already yielded
one surprising tidbit: America's largest, smartest predators may be closer
than many people think.

For years, retired forester Bud Moore, along with many of the other 900
residents of the lush Swan Valley, believed that grizzly bears spent spring
and fall in the valley and summers up in the mountains eating huckleberries..
Then he saw the maps showing that the bears while away the summers in the
valley, bedding down near humans.

One female grizzly spent the last couple of summers nestling in the woods
just behind Mr. Moore's house. That might upset some people, but not him.
"For me, living anywhere else is just kind of a watered-down experience,"
says Mr. Moore, 86 years old. "Those bears are big enough to keep your
adrenaline up. You are just a little more alive than you would be."

Over the past decade, this area's human population has increased 20%. To Mr.
Servheen, the bear-tracking maps suggest that grizzlies are responding by
doing what deer, coyotes, wolves, cougars and the smaller, less dangerous
black bears do where human habitation and nature converge. They are learning
to live among people while keeping a lower profile. Increasingly, grizzlies
are doing most of their feeding and socializing at night.

To many people, grizzlies are fearsome, man-eating creatures; and indeed,
they can be extremely dangerous when defending their cubs or when they are
surprised at close range. But humans are a far bigger threat to the bears
than the other way around.

M-23, blindfolded and tranquilized, is fitted with an electronic collar.

The last fatal grizzly attack in the lower 48 states occurred near here in
2001 when an elk hunter was mauled to death. Meanwhile, at least 355
grizzlies have been killed by people since 1980 in the region near the
Canadian border where Mr. Servheen works. Some were hit by cars and trains;
others were shot illegally by hunters. Still others were killed by state and
federal game officers after the bears had repeatedly ransacked homes, farms
or encampments where people left out food or garbage. "A fed bear is a dead
bear," Mr. Servheen says.

Still, the grizzly population appears to be slowly increasing, and, perhaps
as a result, bears like M-23 are wandering into areas that traditionally
haven't been bear country. Mr. Servheen hopes it means that bears and people
are learning how to live with one another. Some bears, like M-23, have
become especially good at blending into the background. "He's like a ghost
out there," he says.

The satellite tracking, which began four years ago, has given Mr. Servheen
special insights into M-23. Every spring, Mr. Servheen, helped by Montana
and British Columbia game officials, traps a half dozen grizzlies, using
bait to lure them to a steel snare that catches them by the foot.

The officials, after tranquilizing the bears, strap on the GPS collars and
release the animals. Satellites pinpoint the bears' locations once an hour
and the collars store the data on chips. In the fall, just before the bears
retire to their dens for the winter, specially designed bolts release the
collars and send a signal about their whereabouts so that the collars can be
picked up.

The M-23 data showed him moving about unremarkably in the woods, but his two
trips to Seeley Lake raise questions. What was M-23 doing there? Going on
vacation? The answer isn't clear, though Mr. Servheen, in describing his
findings to people who live in the areas where M-23 wanders, learned that
the bear found a lot to eat near the lake. In the summer of 2001, an elderly
farmer threw grain into his fields, thinking he was feeding the deer. He was
really feeding M-23. The next year, another farmer buried a cow during the
day, and the grizzly promptly dug it up at night.

"Bears are big feeding machines," says Mr. Servheen, adding that about 80%
of their diets are roots, berries, seeds, ants and other insects. The
researcher is especially interested in M-23's survival skills because, at
25, he's a little long in the tooth for a grizzly in the wild.

Actually, his teeth are worn nearly to the gum line, so most of his
meat-eating days are over. So are his days of vigorous courtship. While he
has probably sired dozens of cubs, M-23 is stiff from old war wounds and
lacks the sharp teeth he would need to intimidate or outfight younger males
laying claim to the females.

Russ Abolt, a former trade-association executive who is building a
retirement home here, says he has become comfortable living with bears, but
he takes precautions. His dogs come along on hikes and he doesn't leave food
outside. Some of his neighbors aren't so careful; they leave their barbecues
or bird feeders outside at night and in the morning find pieces strewn all
over their lawns. "We all get religion out here," he says. "It's a matter of
how, and how soon we get it."

Living with grizzlies as close neighbors means there are more surprise
encounters than in the past, and people here have developed a kind of
etiquette to deal with them. "The grizzly is a very deliberate animal," says
Mr. Moore. "He's not used to running from anybody or anything." The best
thing someone can do upon running into a bear, he says, is to back away
slowly, talking quietly.

Sometimes there isn't time for niceties. In 1981, Kate Kendall, a bear
researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey, and a colleague came upon a
female grizzly on a trail. The bear, only 30 feet away, was apparently
worried about her nearby cubs. She charged immediately. "She came within an
inch of my field partner's boot and then put on the brakes," recalls Ms.
Kendall. "We see bears doing that to each other all the time," she says,
calling the maneuver a "bluff charge."

Veteran hunting guide Tom Parker has vivid memories of the day several years
ago when he was examining a pile of very fresh bear excrement in a brushy
area at a nearby lake. He was wondering whether he was in any danger when he
nearly stepped on a sleeping grizzly. "He jumped up and took off like he was
shot out of a gun," recalls Mr. Parker. He's pretty sure, after studying
photos taken by Mr. Servheen, that the fleeing bear was M-23.

Write to John J. Fialka at john.fialka@wsj.com