"The success rate depends on a lot of factors, including the age of the bear and its history of encountering people," said Manley, who has caught and trained nearly 100 bears in the area over the past 11 years, fitting many with radio-tracking collars. "This year has been one of our busiest yet -- this month alone we've had 50 call-outs and we caught 10 grizzlies."
But, as officials and biologists acknowledge, educating bears is one thing; making people, particularly newcomers, aware of the realities of living on the edge of grizzly territory is quite another.
Although installing electric fencing around garbage sites and replacing conventional trash bins and cans with bear-proof models has helped, most problems occur where people leave garbage and pet food out in the open.
"People must realize that if they are going to live close to bear habitat there are things that they just cannot do," Servheen said. "Many people come to live here and the only thing they know about the wilderness is whatever they have learned from Walt Disney or the Discovery Channel. You can't live in bear habitat and pretend you're living in suburbia."
Conservationists such as Peck argue that state officials should enforce a state law that makes it illegal to intentionally feed wildlife, particularly bears. So far this year, however, only one citation has been issued.
Not everyone in Montana is so concerned about the grizzly's fate. Eight of the bears reported killed in the past year were victims of illegal shootings -- that is, not carried out in self-defense -- a higher percentage of the total mortality rate than in any other ecosystem. Servheen suggested the real figure could be much higher. "We go by the understanding that for every illegal shooting we know of, there is at least one other we don't," he said.
For some area residents, the grizzly is a source of resentment, a symbol of federal interference. They associate bear protection with curbs on mining, logging and grazing and the closure of forest roads.
"The thing that bothers us most is the lack of access to land because of closed and obliterated roads," said Fred Hodgeboom, president of Montanans for Multiple Use, a local nonprofit organization that advocates wider land access.
Hodgeboom is watching with interest tentative moves by the Fish and Wildlife Service to lift federal protection for grizzlies in the greater Yellowstone area, hoping that delisting may be extended to Montana in the future. "These restrictions have had a huge impact on our economy and our way of life and it's all done in the name of grizzly bears. What is more important, the local population or the grizzly bear?" he asked.
The debate about how to balance the management of Montana's vast tracts of public land with wildlife preservation has been mostly confined to heated community meetings, but disagreements have sometimes taken a sinister turn. Environmentalists have been called "Nazis" by John Stokes, a controversial local radio talk show host. Conservationists say some critics also have referred to them as "the Green al Qaeda." People have reported death threats, according to Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont.
"There is a lot of emotion involved on both sides," Dupont said. "This is all about how people see the future of Montana, and many believe there is a lot at stake."
Peck believes that much of the antagonism stems from a reluctance to accept that the area has undergone dramatic changes in the past decade as more and more people move into the region.
"I think the tensions have calmed a little in the past year, but there was a sense among people that have lived here for a long time that their economy, their community and their way of life was changing and not for the better," he said. "It's always good to have some scapegoat to blame so they started focusing on grizzly bears and other wildlife, the federal government and environmentalists."
For Servheen, the key is changing attitudes and fostering responsibility as the region's growing human population colonizes even more bear habitat.
"This human-bear conflict problem is not going to go away," he said. "Some of it is down to ignorance, some of it is resistance to change. People see bears as someone else's problem, not theirs. Our challenge is to build a sense of ownership and responsibility among the people who live here so that these conflicts can be managed."
