Virginia City is recognized for becoming a Bear Smart Community. Pictured here left to right: Kim Johnston (People and Carnivores), Danielle Oyler (FWP), Kate Steeley (Virginia City Bear Smart Committee), Abby Thomas (Virginia City Bear Smart Committee), Justin Gatewood (Virginia City Mayor).

VIRGINIA CITY – Thanks to community-wide planning and effort to secure food attractants, and with help from partner organizations, Virginia City has become a model city in nearly eliminating conflicts with bears in town.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks recognized Virginia City as a Bear Smart Community in an award ceremony on Saturday.

The southwestern Montana town is well within occupied habitat for black bears and grizzlies and has seen many black bears that move through town. Historically, bears would sometimes find unsecured garbage and other attractants in the town, leading to habituated and food-conditioned bears and subsequent property damage.

In 2017, however, the nonprofit organization People and Carnivores began working with Virginia City to upgrade the town’s infrastructure to reduce conflicts with bears. Those efforts soon began paying off in significantly reducing conflicts.

Seeing a reduction in conflicts, Virginia City began setting aside some of its tourism-based income for Bear Smart efforts. This included a needs assessment, planning and continuing efforts to secure waste and other attractants, as well as hosting an annual bear safety event.

In the last year, Virginia City also passed an ordinance establishing a Bear Smart Community Committee, which leads and continues to carry out conflict reduction efforts. Thanks to the commitment of Virginia City residents, conflicts with bears in town have dropped to near zero.

What is a Bear Smart community?

Becoming a Bear Smart Community is a community-led and community-wide initiative to prevent conflicts with bears. It follows a framework developed by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. The framework includes four components:

• Establishing a committee or working group that is representative of community stakeholders to lead efforts to reduce conflicts between humans and bears.
• Conducting a community assessment to understand existing conflicts and their causes, the local landscape, and stakeholder attitudes toward bears and conflicts.
• Creating a management plan based on the assessment findings.
• Implementing the management plan.

This process can be complex and may take years to implement. It requires support from businesses and residents to address attractants like unsecured garbage, as well as to build sustainable funding systems to keep efforts going. Members of Bear Smart communities also continuously educate businesses, residents and visitors on how to be bear aware at work, at home and while recreating.

“The broad and continuous efforts of Virginia City residents are helping make their community safer by encouraging healthy bear behavior,” said Danielle Oyler, FWP’s wildlife stewardship outreach specialist. “This example of being Bear Smart shows that similar efforts in other communities across Montana can and do make a difference.”

“Virginia City has put in a tremendous amount of work to reduce human-bear conflicts, and they’ve shown dedication to continuing their efforts,” said Kim Johnston, High Divide Field Manager for People and Carnivores. “After regularly seeing bears hang around town, this no longer happens. That’s what being a Bear Smart Community is all about—coming together to keep people and property safe and bears moving.”

To see a video about Virginia City’s adoption of the Bear Smart Community framework, click here.

To learn more about Bear Smart communities, click here. For information and resources about bear safety and management in Montana, click here.