In The Northwest: There is a place where grizzlies, humans co-exist

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Wednesday, October 15, 2003

In The Northwest: There is a place where grizzlies, humans co-exist

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

DUPUYER, Mont. -- He spent eight seasons riding bulls in rodeos, but Karl Rappold has devoted most of his 51 years to challenges of running a 7,000-acre cattle ranch at the base of the Rocky Mountains pioneered by his grandfather 121 years ago.

During 27 of those years, the Rappold Ranch has played part-time home to a male grizzly bear that has grown to more than 1,000 pounds and leaves behind a footprint measured at 9 1/4 inches.

"We've learned to respect him. After all, it is we who are the trespassers on his land," said Rappold. His ranch has not seen one of its animals killed by a grizz since the 1960s.

Ursus horribilis has received some horrible publicity of late.

A Malibu, Calif., man, who made a career of getting up close to Alaska brown bears -- the grizz' giant kinfolk -- and even called them "party animals," was killed and eaten, along with his female companion, last week in Katmai National Park.

Robert Treadwell had written a book and filmed himself with the giant bruins and gone on TV talk shows to talk about how he "knew" them.

In the Bitterroot Mountains on the Idaho-Montana border, Interior Secretary Gale Norton put the kibosh on reintroduction of grizzly bears -- a project seven years in the planning that had U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approval.

Luckily, at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains -- the one spot where grizzlies still come down to the Plains -- rationality seems to be winning out over misguided affection and misplaced fear.

A low-key attitude to live-and-let live -- while minimizing human-bear interactions -- has slowly taken hold.

"The ranchers have a lot of respect for grizzlies. The bears come down on the big ranches and feed. They are seen quite frequently and appreciated," said R.L. "Stoney" Burk, a country lawyer in Choteau, the local county seat.

Signs along the Rocky Mountain Front tell hunters how protected grizzlies, with their distinctive humps, differ from black bears. The Nature Conservancy has bought or secured easements to large tracts of ranchland and grizzly habitat at the base of the Rockies.

In one notable innovation, the Boone and Crockett Club has bought up a 6,000-acre ranch -- named for its founder Theodore Roosevelt -- to demonstrate integrated livestock and wildlife management. It is run by Karl Rappold's son.

Karl Rappold does not seek out bears, get up close or camp along their migration routes.

In the spring, when grizzlies come out of hibernation, he keeps calves away from the upper ranch, which borders the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area. A biologist collects dead animals and livestock, and scatters carcasses in the highlands.

"It gives them food and keeps them there," he explained. As many as 15 sub-adult grizzlies have been counted feeding in the spring on the upper Rappold Ranch.

Charles Jonkel, a renowned now-retired University of Montana bear expert, detects changes in public attitude. "People are more accommodating to bears. It used to be that one grizzly would come out of the mountains and people would go nuts," Jonkel said.

A few miles north, in East Glacier, a biologist named Dan ("the Bear Man") Carney works with Indians on the Blackfeet Reservation and other neighbors of the grizzly. He is man on the spot when grizzlies misbehave.

A half-dozen times a year, Carney is called to inspect the remains of a cow or calf, usually just the bones. "I just determine whether a bear killed it. I then call Defenders of Wildlife, they call the rancher, and they dicker about the price," he said.

Defenders of Wildlife, a national conservation group, has helped assure survival of the wolf in the lower 48 states by developing a compensation program for ranchers. It is doing likewise with grizzlies that live along the Rocky Mountain Front.

An adult grizzly bear needs a lot of space. Females range more than 100 square miles in the northern Rockies. Big male grizzlies can roam over 400 square miles in their lifetimes.

Ursus horribilis' reputation as a carnivore is overstated. "On the whole, most of their diet is vegetation, on the order of 90 percent," said Carney.

Agencies are currently conducting a count on the northern Rockies' grizzly population. The region includes 1.5 million protected acres in three contiguous national forest wilderness areas, as well as the million-acre Glacier National Park.

In Carney's opinion, the grizz population is growing. He believes researchers will find 700 to 800 bears. About 20 of the bears are killed each year. They are hit by trains or cars, mistaken for black bears and shot or are killed because they pose a threat to humans.

The picture is not entirely pretty. "A lot has been done that could get undone," Jonkel observed.

The Bush administration wants to expedite drilling of natural gas wells in two of the most sensitive grizzly habitat areas at the edge of the Rockies. With the wells would come access roads and pipelines.

As well, the U.S. Forest Service has proposed allowing off-road and all-terrain vehicles access to much of the unspoiled (but unprotected) 133,000-acre Badger-Two Medicine region of the Lewis and Clark National Forest.

Roy Jacobs, a taxidermist in Choteau, has hunted over much of North America. His shop shows off the skins of such rare creatures as a wolverine (the gift of a friend).

"This mountain front is probably the most diverse place for wildlife that I've ever seen, except for East Africa," Jacobs reflected. "The more roads we get, the less game we'll have -- and the shorter the hunting season. When you've got easy access, nothing gets left."

Rappold agrees, and takes fierce pride in the fierce creatures that live on his ranch.

Another thousand-pound grizzly has been spotted on the Rappold Ranch. A breeding pair of wolverines recently spent the winter living under an old cabin.

Asked if there's any prospect his spread will ever get subdivided, Rappold replied: "I have a son and grandson waiting to take over this ranch. We're happy right here."

P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com

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