Grizzly Bears Moving onto the Great Plains

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Grizzly Bears Moving onto the Great Plains 〰️

High up a coulee on the Montana prairie, Seth and Jennie Becker look over the windswept landscape with binoculars and point out three grizzly bear dens along the rim of a canyon. The couple, who own Stick Leg Ranch, estimate there are eight grizzly bear dens on their property. After their nine-year-old nearly came face to face with a grizzly in their yard, they decided they needed to find a solution.

Over the last decade, grizzly bears have been expanding further and further east onto the Montana prairie. For example, a grizzly bear was caught on game camera in the Upper Missouri River Breaks in October 2023, hundreds of miles from the grizzly recovery zones of the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems. It was the furthest east a grizzly bear had been seen in 100 years.

Grizzly bears were designated a threatened species through the Endangered Species Act in 1975. By the 1970s, their population had dropped from historic estimates of 50,000 down to 700 individuals in the lower 48 states, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 2023, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks estimated there were 2,100 grizzly bears in the lower 48 states.

As the grizzly population has grown, bears have been documented steadily moving east. Instead of hibernating in the mountains at 6,000 to 10,000 feet, they are beginning to hibernate on the prairie and raise cubs. This is fascinating from a wildlife biology perspective, but it raises unique challenges for rural landowners and wildlife managers.

How are people, like the Beckers, adapting to grizzlies showing up in places they haven't occupied in 100 years? What tools are scientists, bear specialists, or landowners using? What solutions--like livestock guardian dogs, electrification, camera trap payment programs--are emerging as grizzlies return to their historic habitat? What conflict is occurring? What education is being done?

Grizzly bear prairie sightings 2009-2025

*Data provided by Montana FWP*

Photojournalist John Stember has spent the last year and a half working on a photo essay attempting to tackle some of these questions. He will continue to pursue this visual project over the summer and fall of 2025 through the Alexia Student Conservation Grant. He’s hoping to publish the work locally and nationally, kickstart conversations and collaborations, host artist talks, and find spaces to show the exhibition.