Matriarch grizzly bear killed in Highway 93 collision

PABLO — A 25-year-old female grizzly known to wildlife biologists as Griz-40 died Sept. 4 after being struck by a vehicle while crossing U.S. Highway 93, according to a press release issued Friday by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

The incident occurred around 2 a.m. in the area of Post Creek and the Ninepipe wetland complex.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has captured nine bears over the years that were identified as offspring of Griz-40, and her offspring have produced at least 11 offspring of their own, according to the tribes.

Griz-40 was originally captured by state biologists in the Swan Valley in 2001 and was among the first grizzlies to be monitored by collar for the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem trend monitoring study. She had never turned up in the Mission Valley as a conflict bear.

“A lot of these bears are spending more time in the valley,” said Wildlife Program Manager Dale Becker, who has been with tribes’ Natural Resources Department for more than three decades. “It's just such a food-rich area.”

Becker said 25 years is a long life for a grizzly in the wild, though Griz-40 showed no signs of being in dangerously ill health after her death. He said he’s heard of grizzlies living as long as 50 years in captivity, “but 15 to 20 yers in the wild is an old animal.”

Becker and the staff at the department’s Wildlife Program are working on ways to keep wild animals safe around the county’s highways, but devices such as cattle guards and fencing that often work well with deer and other animals don’t work as well with grizzlies.

He was told that the vehicle involved in the incident was an ambulance responding to the call, and that no one in the ambulance was seriously injured but that enough damage was done to require a replacement ambulance to respond instead.

Natural Resources documented eight grizzly bear deaths along Highway 93 on the Flathead Reservation in 2018. There were two in 2019, and Griz-40 was the first grizzly fatality of 2020.

And while that recent downward trend may sound encouraging, Becker warned against jumping to conclusions.

“That can be kind of deceiving. … It’s possible some have become acclimated and those that figured out going farther west was beneficial to their survival are no longer in the picture (since many have been killed).

“We've seen in recent years, with better radio telemetry, quite a number of bears in the area. They can cover incredible amounts of terrain. Modern GPS tracking is showing us some amazing stuff.”