Grizzly DNA monitoring in the Sapphire Mountain Range

The one-track roads leading from Stevensville, Montana, into the Sapphire Mountains are lined with wildflowers like beargrass and lupines by early July. As the truck climbed, the view of the Bitterroot Valley got better and better, as it was a clear, sunny day with temperatures in the 80s.

I was tagging along with Russell Talmo, a program associate for Defenders of Wildlife, and Gypsy, Talmo's seven-year-old German shepherd. Talmo goes into the Sapphires monthly to check on six field sites. Why? Talmo is looking for grizzlies.

More specifically, he's looking for evidence of grizzly bears in this mountain range as part of the Southwest Montana Grizzly Bear DNA Project. Defenders is a partner on this initiative, spearheaded by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Other partners include Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, the U.S. Forest Service and Vital Ground.

"Over the past decade, there have been numerous grizzly bears documented in the Bitterroot Valley," Talmo said. "This study is designed to determine where bears are coming from and how they're traveling into the Bitterroot and accessing the Bitterroot Ecosystem."

Why look for bears entering the Bitterroot? Boasting large roadless areas and a vast expanse of historic grizzly habitat, the return of a resident grizzly bear population to the Bitterroot Ecosystem could eventually provide a genetic link between the isolated Greater Yellowstone population and bears farther north, including those in Glacier National Park and the Seeley-Swan area. Any evidence of these bears ranging south and reaching the Bitterroot is hopeful news for conservationists - and any insights into how they're getting there could help identify key corridors for protection.

How to Look for Grizzlies (Without Bothering Them)

We reached the first site around 11 a.m., before the sun was truly hot. We parked on top of a ridge and climbed down the hillside a bit - Talmo told me that a high setting makes it easier for the wind to pick up smells from the site and carry them to bears, drawing them in.

Each monitoring station employed the same mechanism: a simple set-up of double-barbed wire looped at shin-height around four trees, creating a diamond shape called a "hair-snare corral." A fifth tree outside the diamond was mounted with a motion-sensor camera. Within the diamond was a pile of sticks and debris. To attract bears, you douse the pile with half a Nalgene bottle's worth of scent lure, a mix of animal blood and other goodies that holds the smell until the next time a technician can visit the site. To me it smelled absolutely foul, but to a bear it would entice them to check out the scene. The important thing is that the scent lure provides no food reward once bears arrive, so it isn't training them to linger in the area.

"So, they come and check it out, hopefully leave hair behind, hopefully get their photo taken and go about their day," Talmo said.

The camera and barbed wire are effective yet non-invasive monitoring techniques. When anything crosses into the diamond, the camera starts snapping. At the first site, there were no bears on camera, but a lot of deer and elk activity. One even got pretty nosy with the camera, redirecting the angle of the shot for the last few days.

At the second site, there were lots of bears! Unfortunately, Talmo, a veteran at identifying the difference between a grizzly and a black bear, didn't think the camera caught evidence of any grizzly bears. Still, the scent lure definitely worked - one bear even belly-flopped into the stick pile to roll around in the smelly stuff.

At each site, Talmo also walked around the diamond to check each barb for animal fur. The barbs, he told me, catch the hair without puncturing skin and hold onto it until it can be collected - even when it rains, it doesn't fall off. Every sample is collected and cataloged, but only silver-tipped hair that could belong to a grizzly gets sent to the lab for genetic analysis.

Snapshots of Biodiversity

As we moved through all six sites, we didn't see anything that Talmo definitively thought was sign of a grizzly. We did, however, see evidence of a lot of other critters, a reminder that grizzly country is good habitat for countless species. The camera documented deer and moose, plenty of black bears and one wolverine that Talmo thought he recognized from a past study - dubbed "Powder Paws" by the field technicians. At site 4, the camera got a great photo of a turkey vulture diving in to analyze our pile.

The last thing we did at every site was to pour out the scent lure. After watching Talmo do it a few times, I tried it twice. After you pour the pungent stuff, you don't want to stick around. We packed up our bags and hiked back to the truck, hoping the scent lure would draw some grizzlies through the sites, providing evidence of the species gradually re-connecting its historic range in the Northern Rockies.

Talmo, Gypsy and I made it down from the mountains by 7 p.m., which was good because we were in the truck just in time to avoid a Montana summer thunderstorm, which was accompanied in Stevensville by giant hail pellets - an exciting end to a very fun day.

Work like this is made easier by community members who are invested in the health of grizzly bears in western Montana and beyond. By supporting Vital Ground and our partners, you can help inform grizzly management for years to come. We thank you!

About Vital Ground: An accredited land trust and 501(c)(3) organization, Vital Ground conserves habitat for grizzly bears and other wildlife in the Northern Rockies. Founded in 1990 and based in Missoula, Mont., the organization also partners with communities to prevent conflicts between bears and people. Learn more at http://www.vitalground.org or contact us at info@vitalground.org.