
The first grizzly was found lying in the 15th tee box eating a maggot-infested carp like it was corn on the cob. The neighboring Marias River had flooded, Scott Lennemann, golf course superintendent at Marias Valley Golf & Country Club, told me. The retreating water then left behind a lunch buffet of dead carp, which the lucky bear feasted on.
I heard about Lennemann’s golf course guest through the small-town grapevine that connects the scattered communities across the Montana prairie I call home. I knew—or thought I did—that the only big animals roaming the wide grassy valleys were steers fattening up to make next summer’s BBQ. Sure, Montana had massive bears (up to 700 pounds), but in the Rockies. Marias Valley was in Shelby, Montana, 90 miles east of Glacier National Park, and fits the description of a home where buffalo used to comfortably roam.
Lennemann seemed justifiably surprised to see a grizzly bear in Shelby. But as I looked into why an apex predator had moved into farm country, I learned a startling fact: They were here first.
The giant omnivores—they will eat anything—have lived in the nearby Rockies and on the prairies far longer than Montana has existed. And their absence from the prairie is a manmade aberration from human encroachment and lost habitat, says Mike Madel. Officially, Madel is a grizzly-bear management biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. I went to Madel for answers because unofficially he’s the closest thing our state has to a grizzly whisperer.
[Interesting Read]