HELENA — Montana’s ranchers face challenges of harsh winters and managing conflicts with predators like grizzly bears. A recent U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service ruling pumped the brakes on removing grizzlies from the endangered species list, also putting ranchers' hopes of clarity on the back burner.
“We will fight to protect our way of life and grizzly bears are fighting for their way of life too,” said Teresa Lane a sixth-generation Augusta native.
Lane is fighting for her ranch but has always known there were a lot of grizzlies around her property because of tracks and fur caught in the fence.
"Grizzlies I feel like are a very important part of the ecosystem, as long as they are the good bears and not the problem bears," Lane said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently denied Montana and Wyoming's petitions to delist the grizzly bear from the endangered species list. Reactions were strong from both sides of this divisive issue. One delisting opponent, former US Fish and Wildlife Bear Recovery Specialist Chris Servheen, spoke with us before the delisting decision came down and said more time is needed to make sure grizzlies are fully recovered.
Watch: Former U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Bear Recovery Specialist Chris Servheen on grizzly delisting
Lane said that she has had nine proven grizzly kills in the past decade and many other livestock she believes were killed by bears.
Two days in a row at one point.
Lane recently showed a visitor where her livestock had been killed, recalling how she found the dead calves.
"I go over to check the cows and right over here, right by this tree there was another dead calf," Lane said.
Because of the back-to-back killings, the grizzly was killed by wildlife services.
She feels that the "bad bears" need to be managed in a way that is similar to the removal of the grey wolf from the endangered species list.
The ranch had wolf kills in the past but saw improvement after their delisting. This is something Teresa believes would also happen if grizzlies were delisted, which is why she's concerned with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's decision to push delisting aside.
"The thing that I am most worried about is there are so many people going to be involved in it…who is going to be the real boss?” said Lane.
The federal ruling also included a proposal to manage all grizzlies south of Canada as a collective population instead of individual populations such as the Greater Yellowstone and northern Continental Divide ecosystems.
“Who is actually going to know what is going on and how it needs to be controlled? Who is going to be the one who says we all need to work together?” Lane said.
Lane and her neighbors work together to protect their livestock.
“The key communication is let your neighbors know," Lane says. "If they lose a calf, they will usually call you and if you lose one you call them, and I have one neighbor that loves sending me pictures of grizzlies on trail cam.”
She says losing one animal in the span of a year may not seem that detrimental but that loss can change the whole herd and is a large financial burden even with the reimbursement from the Livestock Loss Board.
“If it kills one of those calves I just lost all of my breeding from that cow that I can go back years on her and you just lost all of those genetics," Lane says.
But more than losing money or the legacy of the herd she says this is about losing what she has worked so hard to leave for her kids.
“My cows are very important to me and ironically I have instilled that in my kids... we simply love our cows.”
