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FWP urges Bozeman community to help manage urban wildlife

‘Problem we all share’

LEAH VERESS

Chronicle Staff Writer

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, in partnership with Gallatin Wildlife Association, held an informational panel about chronic wasting disease and urban wildlife at the Museum of the Rockies on Wednesday. Over 50 community members came out to learn about CWD and ask questions about human-wildlife conflict in Bozeman, including the topic of a high urban deer population.

“We live in a beautiful place. There’s fresh grass, animals have what they need and they proliferate. There’s no control, no natural predators,” said Julie Cunningham, a wildlife biologist with FWP. “We can pick up our apples, we can fix our aspens when we plant them, but they’re still going to eat the grass in our yard. What are we supposed to do?”

For Cunningham, the answer requires collaboration between the City of Bozeman, residents and FWP.

“It’s a problem we all share and my inclination is to see some urban deer management because their numbers are so high,” Cunningham said. Montana Code Annotated 7-3-1105 allows municipalities to develop and enforce plans to “control, remove and restrict game animals.” FWP estimates between 500 and 700 urban deer in south Bozeman alone, accounting for about 60 to 85 deer per square mile. Bozeman currently has no deer management strategy.

Conversely, Helena, which began its urban deer management program in 2008, had a deer density estimated at 47 deer per square mile at the time. FWP works with the city to provide technical expertise, overseeing CWD sampling and testing, while city animal control officers conduct lethal removals. The city covers the costs of staffing, surveys and trapping and removal.

As a state agency, FWP lacks the funding and personnel to enforce deer management plans in individual municipalities, according to Cunningham.

Because FWP receives much of its funding from hunting and fishing license revenue, along with federal excise taxes on firearms, ammunition and fishing equipment, FWP utilizes hunting as the primary tool for monitoring and managing wildlife populations.

However, hunting is not a viable option in urban settings like Bozeman, Cunningham said. Rather, in most urban areas, funding and resources for wildlife management are identified and provided by city governments, like Helena.

Aside from the nuisance of high urban deer densities, Bozeman deer populations the additional risk of spreading CWD. On Nov. 24, 2025, a white-tailed buck within city limits tested positive, marking the first positive case in Bozeman.

CWD is caused by an infectious protein called a prion that can be spread between members of the deer family via direct animal-to-animal contact or indirect environmental contamination. Infected animals can show no symptoms for months or years before developing clinical signs, which include behavioral changes, poor body condition, increased salivation, and loss of coordination and awareness. Once contracted, CWD is always fatal.

CWD was first detected in wild deer in Montana in 2017. Currently, FWP is working to mitigate the spread of the disease based on the 2020 Montana Chronic Wasting Disease Management Plan. The plan focuses on managing new detections, limiting the spread of CWD, maintaining or reducing prevalence in affected areas, improving public education and communication, and providing testing for hunter- harvested animals. “We need citizen involvement; this is an all-hands-ondeck moment to try to keep our deer healthy,” Cunningham said.

In addition to encouraging residents to lobby their commissioners to consider developing an urban deer management plan, Cunningham suggested practicing cautious driving, landscaping with deer-resistant flora, keeping birdfeeders and other attractants inaccessible, and picking up fallen apples. Similar precautions were mentioned during the evening’s urban bear talk, led by Noah Starling, an FWP wildlife technician.

Bears consume hundreds of species of fungi, plants and animals, relying heavily on their curiosity for survival. FWP’s 2024 guide documents more than 288 species in the diets of Montana grizzly bears.

“When you eat that much, it means you can go to a lot of places,” Starling said. He pointed to photos of black bears in alleys and backyards around Bozeman. “They investigate a lot of smells and, as humans, we’re pretty good at making smells.”

Primary attractants for bears include bird feeders, trash, pet food and fruit trees.

Beyond securing attractants, which includes taking trash out the morning of collection rather than the night before, Starling emphasized the importance of encouraging neighbors to do the same. When bears are left without a food source, they are likely to move on. When bears are continually rewarded with food, they become food habituated and can pose a danger to humans, often leading to their removal or euthanization.

“The last thing we want to do is to kill bears,” Starling said. “I see it in the newspaper all the time, or in comments on Facebook, that FWP just wants to kill bears. That is the absolute last thing we want to do.”

While relocation is sometimes a viable option, it is rarely effective.

“It takes a whole community to prevent human-wildlife conflict,” Starling said. “Every single person in this room can be the difference between a bear dying and a bear living.”

Welcome to 'Bearsville:' Red Lodge sees huge influx of bruins this year

• Brett French
  

Over the past three to four years, bears have gotten bolder in the mountain town of Red Lodge.

Whereas the community used to have bears that would key in on garbage and ignore people, now some bruins are approaching people, veteran Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologist Shawn Stewart told the community at a recent meeting, a portion of which was recorded by Montana Independent News.

“We had bears breaking into houses, occasionally cars,” he said. “We had bad bears. They were garbage bears. They were addicted to garbage, but they didn't associate the garbage with people. They'd walk right past people all the time going to a garbage can.

“That has changed. We've seen exactly all of those behaviors escalate alarmingly.”

Bear conflicts are up

According to FWP’s grizzly bear conflict dashboard, 34 grizzly bear conflicts have been recorded in the greater Red Lodge region so far this year out of 224 conflicts statewide.

The incidents have included preying on livestock, interactions with humans and seeking out human sources of food. One bold grizzly has actively avoided trapping efforts by FWP. Two grizzlies were killed by FWP in Carbon County earlier this year. So far, 25 grizzlies have been killed across the state, six by cars and nine for preying on livestock.

For Red Lodge, problems began in April and continued into September. In July, a Carbon County News article dubbed the community “Bearsville.”

Thanks to a dry winter and summer, normal bear foods — such as berries and whitebark pine cones — are fewer. Since Red Lodge is at the base of a huge backcountry “funnel,” with drainages like Rock Creek running into town, bears naturally migrate into the area, as they have for centuries, Stewart explained. The region’s geography provides clues to this situation.

Just over the hill from Red Lodge is the community of Bearcreek, established in the early 1900s, which Bear Creek flows through. A tributary to the Clarks Fork Yellowstone River is Silver Tip Creek. Silvertip is another name for grizzlies, used by trappers since the 1800s. The mountain range Red Lodge abuts is the Beartooths.

Historic tales recount hunting black bears and grizzlies in the region.

Natural foods are scarce

From 1980 to 2000, Stewart conducted research on bears for FWP. In 1986 and 1988, the year of the Yellowstone fires, natural food sources were scarce, much like this year. In 1986, 30% of the region’s black bear population was removed. In 1988, 10 to 15 bears roamed Red Lodge’s streets at night, Stewart recounted.

Trapping and moving bears didn’t work. Sometimes they would practically beat Stewart back to town, he joked. One bear had a hankering for food at the Red Box Car burger joint along Rock Creek. Other times, the relocated bear would just get into trouble in another community.

“In 2026, there have been 201 incidents involving bears within 15 miles of Red Lodge,” according to a recent press release from the Gallatin Wildlife Association and Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Those numbers are from August, said Chrissy Webb, FWP’s communications manager in Billings.

“Since that time, there have been more conflicts in Red Lodge and the rest of the region, but we don’t have specific numbers at this time,” she said.

No grizzlies prior to 2011

Bear managers have killed “seven black bears and two grizzlies in the area this year, with seven of those close to or within Red Lodge city limits,” the groups said, based on FWP counts.

“Overall, we’ve had significantly more conflicts, relocations, and lethal removals than normal this year,” Webb said. “The increase in conflicts this year has predominantly been with black bears, not grizzly bears.”

Stewart said he never saw grizzlies in the area until 2011, but with the population growing in the nearby Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which includes Yellowstone National Park, more bears are seeking homes farther from the safe confines of the mountains.

“We have some very serious situations in this town that have to be solved as a community,” Stewart said.

Conservation groups weigh in

To reduce conflicts, Red Lodge has organized a community bear watch program, replaced garbage containers with bear-proof dumpsters and provided training for community members on removing other attractants like bird feeders and barbecue grills.

Some locals blame short-term rental clients for not properly closing garbage cans. FWP has even caught people purposely feeding bruins.

"It is everyone's responsibility to become involved, to take action, to instill the most effective, yet harmless policies and practices possible in deterring wildlife,” said Clint Nagel, president of the Gallatin Wildlife Association.

"The bottom line is simple: a fed bear is a dead bear," wildlife consultant Mike Bader said.