Human Safety 



Grizzly bears are large, powerful animals and, on rare occasions, can threaten human safety and life. 

 Successful grizzly bear management will require minimizing threats to human safety to the extent 

 possible. Accordingly, FWPs preferred approach includes the following: 



> Bears that kill people in either an unprovoked or provoked situation will be removed from the 

 population if they can be reasonably identified. If a female with cubs at side attacks and kills a 

 person in an unprovoked situation, removal of the cubs from the population will be considered to 

 prevent a learned behavior from being passed along. In this instance, FWP recognizes that the 

 approach is more constrained than present guidelines. 



> Bears displaving unacceptable aggression, or behavioral responses considered to be a threat to 

 human safety, will be removed from the population as quickly as possible. 



> Information on safety in bear country will be provided in all big game hunting regulations. 



> FWP will seek expansion and enforcement of practical and effective attractant-storage requirements 

 within western Montana. 



> FWP will work with county governments and local garbage haulers to require and provide bear- 

 resistant garbage containers for homeowners in bear country. 



Threats to human safety cannot be eliminated totally. Individual bears can alter their behavior for 

 reasons known or unknown and cause injury or death to people. People also make mistakes, which in 

 turn can lead to conflicts with bears and increase risks to human safety. For example, one individual 

 failing to secure human foods from bears can precipitate a chain of events that leads to a bear becoming 

 ever more familiar with people and their dwellings. This elevates risks unnecessarily. Also, as time goes 

 by without conflict, people can become complacent. It is through awareness of the risk, and by 

 responding accordingly, that support for grizzlies in Montana can increase while minimizing the risks. If 

 officials fail to respond adequately to concerns for human safety, local support for maintaining this 

 species will erode. 



As grizzly bears in western Montana expand into new habitats outside the recovery zones, they will be 

 expanding into habitats that, in large part, are already occupied by people living, working, and 

 recreating. With this expansion, the number of bear/human encounters will increase. These encounters 

 could lead to injuries or death for both humans and bears. 



Under Montana Statute 87-3-130 and under 50 CFR 17.40, a citizen may legally kill a grizzly bear while 

 acting in self-defense if the bear "... is molesting, assaulting, killing, or threatening to kill a person..." In 

 western Montana grizzly bears have been killed by individuals achng in self-defense. With the potential 

 for increasing human/bear encounters, safety for both humans and bears becomes an important issue. 



One purpose of this management plan is to minimize the potential for human-grizzly conflicts that could 

 lead to injury or loss of human life, or human-caused grizzly mortality while maintaining traditional 

 residential, recreational and commercial uses of the areas into which the grizzly is or may be expanding. 

 There is a possibility that certain types of human use may require modification, restriction, or prohibition 

 to protect people, individual bears, reduce conflicts, or manage critical habitats. This is the same program 

 FWP uses for other potentially dangerous species such as mountain lions or black bears. 



Although there are a variety of situations that can result in a human-grizzly conflict, the primarv' 

 categories are: 1) food attractants - improper food storage or sanitation in either a backcountry (hunter 



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