October lethal for grizzlies

THREATENED SPECIES – October is always a lousy month to be a grizzly bear, and this October was worse than usual.

Eight of the threatened bears were killed in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem last month, compared to the 10-year October average of 5.3 dead grizzlies.

And while this year’s total-to-date of 23 grizzly deaths isn’t setting records, the number of illegal kills has raised concern.

“That’s a higher number than we’ve seen,” grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen said Oct. 30. “That’s really unfortunate, and we know we only know of a portion of those illegal kills.”

Poachers cut off the claws of two of the illegally killed grizzlies.

What’s more troubling has been the number of bears dying at the hands of bird and big-game hunters. A couple of those encounters involved upland bird hunters entering thick brush that bears used as daybeds. One sow killed on the Rocky Mountain Front had three cubs, all of which are presumed dead as well because they’re unlikely to survive without their mother.

Add to that the campground-habituated sow and two cubs killed or removed from Glacier National Park this summer and the two bears killed by trains, and bears are catching it from all sides. There were 11 grizzly deaths in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem last year, and 26 in 2007.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologists have relocated a dozen grizzlies and 53 black bears that got into trouble with humans this year, according to department spokeswoman Joleen Tadej.

Another 27 grizzlies have been killed this year in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Last year, 80 bears died in the Wyoming portion of that ecosystem, prompting authorities to reconsider plans to remove the grizzly from Endangered Species Act protection there.

“Every mortality is a concern for us,” Servheen said. “And the year’s not over yet.”

The Missoulian

Ducks hit hard in oceans, fields

WILDLIFE – It’s been a bad few weeks for waterfowl in certain areas of Washington.

• More than 10,000 scoters (sea ducks) have been killed by the first algal foam that hit Washington’s Olympic Peninsula in mid-September. The foam has been linked to the bloom of an algae that hasn’t posed a problem in the Northwest until now.

The kill amounts to up to 7 percent of the scoters’ overall West Coast population, according to Julia Parrish, University of Washington marine biologist.

Thousands more sea birds, including many red-throated loons, were killed in the second wave of foam off southwest Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula about two weeks ago.

•More than 250 mallards and pintails were found dead near Lynden apparently after they ate moldy grain and died of a fungal disease.

Staff and wire reports