Stay Informed Through Online Bear Dashboards
September is Bear Aware month in Montana and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has a few new tools to help the public stay informed of what’s happening with bears around the state.
This summer, FWP has unveiled two new grizzly bear dashboards to add to the Grizzly Bear Mortality Dashboard we launched last summer. Not only do these dashboards help keep the public informed, they provide insight into the reason that bear conflict occurs and tools that FWP uses to help landowners and communities reduce conflicts.
The Grizzly Bear Mortality Dashboard is a tool to track documented and known grizzly bear mortalities in Montana on an annual basis. This dashboard includes all known sources of mortality, without regard to recovery areas or ecosystems. Mortality is defined as the removal of a bear from the Montana population. In most cases that means the bear has died. In some cases that means the bear was an orphaned cub, captured and moved to a zoo, or an adult bear captured and moved out of state for population augmentation.
And just last month, FWP launched the Grizzly Bear Conflict Dashboard and the Bear Relocation Dashboard.
The Grizzly Bear Conflict Dashboard is a resource for information on where FWP staff are helping landowners and communities with conflicts and the types of conflicts people are experiencing. The information on the dashboard is updated regularly, but not until after the conclusion of a conflict. This could take several days depending on what the conflict is and what response is taken. The dashboard displays conflict data from starting in mid-June. Conflict information prior to that will be entered by FWP staff as time allows.
The Bear Relocation Dashboard displays general relocations on an interactive map. FWP relocates bears for a variety of reasons and the interactive features allow users to click to see information about the relocation including the species of bear, general reason and the date of latest relocation. For years, FWP has posted relocation information on its website. This will continue, and the Bear Relocation Dashboard will simply be another resource for the public.
Links to all three dashboards are available on the grizzly bear management webpage. For more information on grizzly and black bear conflict prevention and management, FWP has many web-based resources for communities, landowners and recreationists.
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