Cabinet-Yaak grizzly numbers small, but rising

Scientists continue to struggle to establish a good population of grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem . . .

Spring has brought bears back into action, and it’s also energized biologists overseeing the remote population of grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak mountains of northwest Montana.

“We were in negative territory, but as of this year, after several years of low mortality we’re seeing some improvement,” said Wayne Kasworm, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recovery coordinator in Libby. “Now we have a projected growth rate of 1.4 percent. That’s compared to the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, where it’s roughly 3 percent.”

While those two huge areas each have close to 1,000 grizzlies, the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem struggles to stay around 50. It does so with about a quarter of the NCDE’s territory, which stretches from the southern tip of the Rattlesnake Wilderness north of Missoula up to Glacier National Park.

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