Young grizzly bears pop up near Brady

By KARL PUCKETT • Tribune Staff Writer — Aug 10, 2010

BRADY — Grizzly bears were moving through wide-open wheat fields south of Brady on Saturday — just as farmers were preparing to harvest — as the threatened species continues to venture farther east into historic plains habitat.

"We've never seen anything like that before," Gus Winterrowd said of a pair of young grizzlies he saw in a field at his place three miles south of Brady. "Wasted the whole morning watching them."

Brady is about 50 miles north of Great Falls on Interstate 15. It's known for its grain, not grizzlies.

It was the first time Winterrowd, who is working on his combines getting ready to cut in a few days, had seen a grizzly in the area.

"And I talked to the old-timers around here, and they'd never seen bears this far off the Teton (River)," he said.

Winterrowd's farm is three miles north of the Teton River.

Byron Grassman, who works at the Mountain View Co-op grain elevator at Collins, saw three bears walking across a wheat field, not two.

When he was told that grizzlies were in the area, he scrambled 140 feet up the elevator to get a look. Using binoculars, he spotted two cubs and a sow walking across the field toward the Teton. "I prefer they stay in the river bottom," he said.

Winterrowd said his neighbor, Kevin Keller, called him about the bears at 7:30 a.m. and he ran out to take a look. He saw only the two cubs, not the sow, between two fields on the border of his land and Keller's, he said.

The cubs appeared to be in good health weighing at least 200 pounds, he said. Winterrowd watched the bears "for quite a while" before they moved back toward the Teton.

Grizzly sightings on the plains have picked up in recent years as young grizzlies forge onto farm country from the Rocky Mountains, which is part of a bigger Northern Continental Divide grizzly ecosystem population, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

In June, two young grizzlies traveled all the way to Carter northeast of Great Falls. Traps were set for the bears, but they disappeared.

Another young grizzly, dubbed "Loma Bear" for its historic journey east to that prairie community last summer, was captured on the plains of Chouteau County after returning to the area in July. It was later euthanized after it killed chickens, the second time it had fed on domestic animals.