Is the move out of the mountains due to the long winter and wet spring?

We’ve been talking about grizzly south of Interstate 90 in Idaho,  but a more obvious movement is the presence of two or more grizzly bears out on the plains, well east of the Rocky Mountain front.

Young grizzlies push farther eastward. By Michael Babcock.  Tribune Outdoor Editor • Great Falls Tribune.

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About The Author

Ralph Maughan

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

3 Responses to Young grizzlies out on the plains, east of Interstate 15 in Montana

  1. Mike says:

    The pic at the link is amazing – two young grizz in a wide open field. Obviously, any country that can support grizz still wandering out into the prairie is pretty special.

  2. dave smith says:

    As the Craigheads and Chuck Jonkel pointed out decades ago–the habitat is there for grizzlies, what’s lacking is the political and social will to accomodate bears.

  3. ProWolf in WY says:

    Such a great thing to see. It is nice to see parts of the old west returning. Kind of like seeing elk on a grassland, you get a glimpse of what it was like when Lewis and Clark were there. I sure hope some crackpot doesn’t shoot them. Did anyone read the comment in the article about bears showing up on 10th street in Great Falls. Too bad this Manifest Destiny crap is still alive and well. Nice to see that grizzlies are expanding into the prairies and into range in Idaho they haven’t been to in decades. Nature can heal itself when given the chance, but I still think reintroductions are necessary in other places.

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‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey

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