Tag Archives: Kalispell

Lone wolf visits Kalispell Saturday morning

It seems a wolf made a post-hunting season visit to Kalispell Saturday morning . . .

Three generations of the Grande family shared a bonding experience Saturday morning when they followed a wolf through northwest Kalispell . . .

The Grandes weren’t the only people to report seeing the wolf, according to the Kalispell Police Department dispatch log.

The Kalispell wolf saga started at 10:30 a.m., when a woman reported seeing the wolf running along Windward Way, near the Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Just before 11 a.m., another woman said she saw it running along the back of the Flathead County Fairgrounds.

Shortly after 11 a.m., the Grandes made their reports. The wolf was then spotted in a field between Northridge Drive and Four Mile Drive. As it exited town, deputies with the Flathead County Sheriff’s Department took up the chase and managed to film it on their dashboard cameras.

It was at that point that officers contacted Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which sent out three people with equipment to try and read the collar’s signal . . .

Continue reading . . .

More grizzly bears moving out of high country and into town

An interesting report from the Missoulian . . .

Like a bucket filled beyond its brim, Montana’s wild spaces are spilling grizzly bears.

In August, a homeowner’s remote camera recorded a 250-pound grizzly bear foraging along Ashley Creek – two blocks from the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks regional headquarters in Kalispell.

“The pool’s closed and the big money’s paid out – we’ve had our first grizzly in Kalispell,” FWP Region 1 bear specialist Erik Wenum joked. “It walked itself right out of town. It wasn’t collared, but it wasn’t doing anything bad. It was just a location issue.”

Those location issues may become more common…

Continue reading . . .

Grizzlies getting a little too close to some homes in Flathead area

It sounds like the usual late-season bear attractants are causing some problems in the valley. The Missoulian has a write-up . . .

State wildlife officials worked through the weekend to capture a trio of apple-eating grizzly bears visiting homes near Columbia Falls, but as of Monday they had succeeded in penning just two of the grizzlies.

Meanwhile, a trap set for a fourth grizzly habituating a residential area in Kalispell was pulled Monday following a week that brought an unusual amount of interface between grizzlies and humans in the Flathead Valley.

Continue reading . . .