A variety of agricultural and livestock enterprises also exist across the 17-county region. As bears expand 

 into areas outside the recovery zones, the potential exists for operators to be impacted by their presence. 

 Grizzly depredation on domestic livestock would likely be minimal initially; however, as the bear 

 population increases and expands into areas outside the recovery zones, the incidence of depredation 

 could increase. Likewise, orchard and apiary (including commercial, pollination, landowner and 

 hobbvists) operators, could experience income loss due to bear presence. As the costs of bear damage 

 and depredation fall on the individual rancher or producer, economic losses and increased management 

 costs due to livestock depredation, and damage to apiaries and orchards could be significant to 

 individual producers but are unlikely to affect the overall industry. 



Over the long term, agencies that manage lands in western Montana could see increased costs due to 

 regulations regarding expanded attractant storage rules and habitat management changes. Most of these 

 changes are already occurring in the areas that could be occupied by grizzly bears in the near term, and 

 the public has clearly indicated support for these efforts. Also, because grizzly bears have always had 

 and will always have a high public profile, public pressure could result in FWP and other agencies 

 reprioritizing programs to focus additional effort on grizzly bear management. It is FWPs hope that by 

 managing grizzlies as one component of our wildlife program such reprioritization would have minimal 

 affect on other programs. 



Cumulative Effects 



The following discussion of cumulative effects is a synopsis of the analysis of effects presented in the 

 pre\'ious section. A cumulative effect is generally defined as the impact on the environment, which 

 results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably 

 foreseeable future actions. Such impacts can result from individually minor yet collectively significant 

 actions taking place over a period of time. 



Past, present and reasonably foreseeable actions may affect grizzly bear habitat. Of concern are 

 cumulative effects on grizzly bears due to increasing rural settlement and subdivisions on private lands. 

 Irrespective of this plan, such changes would occur, and could affect the bear's use of habitat and 

 movement between habitats. In addition, bears that spend more time at lower elevations have more 

 conflicts with humans and experience a higher level of mortality. It is possible that increased 

 development of lower elevation sites will lead to an increase in such adverse effects. 



Rural economies are changing in western Montana and the cumulative impacts resulting from livestock 

 and agricultural losses attributed to grizzly bears and other predators could further decrease the ability of 

 long term operators to persist in this environment. Adverse impacts could result if additional ranch land 

 were sold for conversion into subdivisions and residential developments. 



As grizzly bears expand into areas outside the recover}' zones, black bear hunting could have indirect 

 cumulative adverse impacts on grizzly bears, particularly in areas with lower grizzly bear population 

 levels. Grizzly bears have the potential to be killed either through mistaken identity or conflicts with 

 hunters. Restrictions on hunting in grizzly bear habitat could result in both beneficial and adverse effects 

 to the bear. Restrictions could result in fewer hunter-related grizzly bear mortalities, but may also reduce 

 the availability of carcasses and gut piles for grizzly bears. In addition, restrictions would antagonize 

 hunters and others who traditionally utilized such areas, leading to erosion of public trust and support 

 for the grizzly bear program and increased "vandal" killing. 



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