The original count of grizzly bears was laughably bad and those were the words from a biologist in Montana, not only did it exclude many areas and ignore bears that apparently won’t cross borders to the west or south it was politically motivated. The yearly counts they did for goats and sheep were more organized. Now as a hunter that has no interest in hunting grizzly bears I will team you the eastern slopes needs it or more bears will be pushed to the prairies and killed. These are younger bears, having an allocated hunt helps lower larger boar numbers which allows younger bears to thrive and not get pushed out and killed. As for Under a 1000 not even during the initial count were we that low. I can show you a drainage where you’ll see 4-6 different bears in a day of glassing… one drainage according to the study that’s all the bears within 80 or so sq km lol
I can drive 12 km further north where I’ve got 6 or 7 cameras setup, more bears. Fnw moved out a few that were causing trouble at a near campground. The only thing I’m certain of is they have no interest in knowing the actual numbers or spending the resources to find out. The more it’s ignored the more conflict there will be
|