The grizzly bears feasted on piles of spilled wheat and barley. They broke into grain bins. They helped themselves to apples from family orchards. Sometimes they massacred chickens or picked off calves.

Once nearly eradicated from the lower 48 United States, grizzlies are growing in population and spreading onto Montana’s plains, where they had not roamed in perhaps a century.

In their travels, they’ve acquired a fondness for the good eating to be found in farmyards.

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Bears scavenged for food near grain bins and a trap, at right in the background, that was set for them on Steve and Julie Ahrens’s farm near Shelby, Mont. CreditCredit...Wesley Sarmento/Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks

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A bear that broke into a grain bin on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Valier, Mont. Credit...Wesley Sarmento/Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife

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Spilled grain and signs of a bear. Credit...Wesley Sarmento/Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks

This is a grave problem for both humans and bears. The safety of farmers and their families is at stake, and so is the survival of the bears, which could get themselves killed by threatening people’s lives and livelihoods.

Enter the bear dogs. This one’s name is Patton, and he’s a Turkish Boz shepherd.

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CreditCredit...Video via Mike Leys

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