Bear alert system in planning stages
Photo by SHARON HINTZE The committee of Boundary County residents and agency representatives is working on the establishment of a bear notification system before bears get out of hibernation.
Photo by NANCY RUSSELL A notification system will be in place to notify community members on wherabouts of some bears.
Photo by NANCY RUSSELL The NIXLE notification system is one such way that community members may be notified of observation of some bears.
BONNERS FERRY— A meeting of the minds occurred at the Kootenai Tribal office this past Thursday, Feb. 20, to continue a discussion about the creation of a community alert system for bears.
They will begin emerging back out into the area from hibernation within about a month’s time.
The room was filled with both community members and a number of interested agency contacts, all with the same goal — to help get the public alerted to potential problems concerning bears.
In May of 2019, a grizzly bear near Mt. Hall Elementary School became a problem. That bear killed lambs on the Lammers ranch, and a few miles away, another resident lost a few sheep.
The grizzly bear is listed as endangered on the Wildlife Endangered Species list and is a protected animal. Grizzlies cannot be killed by residents for nuisance issues such as livestock attacks or property loss.
An alert system would be helpful to let residents know that there has been a bear observed within the area. The primary goal is to raise awareness so residents may take necessary precautions.
A few ideas were discussed regarding the information dissemination.
Darcy Lammers, the community member, rancher and landowner who lost livestock to a grizzly bear last May, is proactive in attending the KVRI meetings and in bringing valuable ideas to the table.
“My idea was just to use NIXLE, because it’s already a system in place to get the information out,” said Lammers. “You have to subscribe to it; you can log onto the website and subscribe to it, or send a text message to subscribe to it.”
The NIXLE system is administered by the Boundary County Sheriff’s Department. NIXLE is a service that allows verified government agencies to send messages to residents who have subscribed to the system. It is free of charge.
Protocols for reporting of observed bears were discussed.
Scott Soults of Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, read information from a draft protocol concerning what kind of rules would be devised for the reporting of bears and in engaging a warning system to residents in Boundary County.
Soults described a non-problem situation; whereas, this could be defined as a bear that was seen within a hundred yards, walking through a property. The bear is observed but flees from human presence, and the bear is in a natural habitat.
A problem situation that could be reported may have some general categories for reporting.
“If it’s observed next to or close to proximity of a dwelling, observed or suspected unnatural foods, bear has been observed with multiple visits to the property, displays aggression or does not flee upon observation,” said Soults. “Those are just some real general categories.”
Soults said, “This is just a communication system, trying to get the information out to everybody, that there is a presence of a bear, non-problem or problem.”
The discussion shifted as to how the public would want to be alerted and as to what situation.
“I don’t want to hear from everybody if it’s not a substantiated problem,” explained Lammers. “My concern with a community phone tree, is that it turns into a gossip tree and then everybody that’s scared of everything starts making phone calls and then it loses effectiveness.”
Mandy Lammers brought up an issue that may occur and could possibly cause public overuse of the alerting system.
“They’re going to report every black bear. We get black bears all the time. I am not going to report black bears everytime, they’re not a threat, they haven’t been a threat, they’re a nuisance,” said Mandy Lammers.
“If you have a black bear getting into mischief, we would like to deal with that,” said Brian Johnson, Idaho Conservation Officer for Idaho Fish and Game. “It might be a black bear today, but if there’s a problem at that homesite we want to deal with it before it’s a grizzly bear at that homesite.”
Idaho Fish and Game would like to help those households that are having issues with black bears, or grizzly bears, in mitigating the circumstance of the contacts and limiting the attractants if able to do so.
Johnson went on to explain that there are more human injuries due to other animals, more so than bears.
“Montana’s model [of notification], also includes moose and cougars in it,” said Johnson. “Frankly, I know more people who’ve been injured by moose than all of our predators together, in the 30 years I’ve been here...far more people have been injured by moose, so they include moose and cougars into their phone tree.”
The meeting participants discussed possible requirements for reporting and how to get the information out to the public as a warning notification.
The general consensus for the meeting ended in a high agreement with the usage of NIXLE in getting the information to those residents who have subscribed to the public alert system.
NIXLE could send the message out to report on sightings of bears and could give the location of the bear when observed.
Secondary, and possibly to occur alongside the formal NIXLE alert system, would be the phone-tree idea; whereas, a community neighborhood coordinator would be assigned and calls would be made to residents within their area of control.
In addition to the NIXLE system and the phone tree, community coordinator, the Bonners Ferry Herald facebook page could also update posts concerning the alerts.
Alerts to the NIXLE system would be confirmed by Idaho Fish and Game professionals by way of calls from residents or from Boundary County Sheriff’s Office.
For the meantime, a sighting could be reported to either Boundary County Sheriff’s Office or Idaho Fish and Game, after which time, a decision would be made by Idaho Fish and Game as to whether or not a NIXLE alert would be reasonable to inform county residents.
There will be another Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative Grizzly Bear Subcommittee meeting in March, with a time and date to be announced, to further develop the warning system plan and with getting it into place.
The NIXLE service for weather alerts, emergencies, road issues, wildfires, accidents, etc. can be accessed by texting the zip code where you would like information to 888-777; for Boundary County, use the 83805 or 83853 ZIP code.