Well, this year was a bust. Any recommendations?

On my property we have chokecherries, serviceberries, Oregon grapes, elderberries, and rose hips. And all have been looted because this year was awful for the bears. Now, granted I have two bags of chokecherries in my freezer from last year, but the early green-up caused the bears to have a caloric deficit when they emerged from hibernation. (No early shoots).

I suspect with the "super El Nino" this season, we'll probably have an early spring. Which means another round of starving animals.

I like the idea of forest plots, but honestly, the forests out here are hungry and I'm more likely to see everything eaten than not. I live in the mountains of Western Montana and don't recognize any of the wild edibles other than maybe dandelions (too bitter for me), mallow, and some other weeds. Maybe someone here has suggestions--if not for the fall, maybe next spring/summer?

No, I won't do mushrooms. Too scary. And I despise asparagus.  

That's a rough year. Hard to compete with bears when they're that determined. Any chance you can get to the rose hips before they circle back? I'd have thought those ripen later so might still be worth a trip out if there's any left on the bushes.

Joao Winckler wrote:That's a rough year. Hard to compete with bears when they're that determined. Any chance you can get to the rose hips before they circle back? I'd have thought those ripen later so might still be worth a trip out if there's any left on the bushes.

Nope, they are GONE. Completely. Even the ones below my house. Everything looks like it got beaten up badly too. The chokecherries and other trees look like they got scraped through. Leaves ripped off; branches stripped. I do have some dried rose hips, but not as good as the fresh ones.

Why not encourage more of those plants so maybe there will be enough for you and the bears?

Or plant more in a more inconvenient place?

Anne Miller wrote:Why not encourage more of those plants so maybe there will be enough for you and the bears?

Or plant more in a more inconvenient place?

Well, we have a lot of chokecherries. And they are wild, so there is that. 🤷‍♀️ We have several by the barn, in front of the house, along the road towards the neighbors.

Only two elderberries on my property, as far as I know. two rose bushes--one which is right in front of my house. Several serviceberries in front and next to the barn.

I swear, it wouldn't matter, really. It's been a nasty, lean year, especially for bears.

Do you have wild edible plants on other parts of your property that you could encourage to multiply thus helping feed the bears and discourage them from coming into your living space?

Some plants are easily encourage to multiply by using "layering" and I believe berry bushes are some that do.

Time to start eating bear.

Anne Miller wrote:Do you have wild edible plants on other parts of your property that you could encourage to multiply thus helping feed the bears and discourage them from coming into your living space?

Some plants are easily encourage to multiply by using "layering" and I believe berry bushes are some that do.

Hmm, maybe I could look at planting some native grasses and create a feed plot for them? Not sure what might work. Maybe plant wild roses in an area that they could just stay in and forage? Bears are a nuisance here, but not because we encourage them. Although at least one of my neighbors used to leave dog food outside and FWP had to trap and kill the bear because it got used to humans. 🤬🤬🤬 Never mind that there are some people here who still don't go with bear resistant trash dumpsters, even though it's the law where we live. 🤬🤬🤬

Truth is, usually there is enough berries for them, but we did have a spring frost that killed the buds too. So, anything that survived was pretty much fair game. The local bear expert says the early greening combined with the failure of most of the berries drove them down here. So, no berries for me. I have to wonder if there is anything left to pick when it comes to foraging.

Thom Bri wrote:Time to start eating bear.

LOL, missed this! Yeah, bear is yummy.

We do wildlife management.

That means we keep the wildlife wild though we feed them away from where we live.

We have food plo9ts planted for the wildlife.

We furnish water away from where we live,

We provide food, water and shelter.

I am not sure how to furnish bears shelter?

Some edible plants that produce a lot of foods for both bears and people that we enjoy (and that are cheap to get and plant or can be grown from seeds or transplanted starts):

apples and crab apples
sunchokes (do bears dig up roots?) -- my friends with sunchokes/Jerusalem artichokes all end up with more than they can keep up with every fall
black raspberries (also good for making barriers)
mulberries (they also grow very quickly and produce quickly)
greens (not sure if bears care about greens) like lambsquarters, nettles, curly dock (which also makes good seeds for baking)
anything in the mint family is pretty hard to overharvest because it spreads so quickly and happily -- wild mint, lemon balm, bee balm, etc. (we use these for teas and medicine, especially lemon balm)

For the biggest quantity, fruit and nut trees are going to be the best.  We grow apples from seed on the kitchen counter and then you can transplant them once they get a few inches tall.  They are not true to the parent variety but if you're growing for cider or sauce it doesn't matter much -- or for feeding a hungry bear that eats up everything else.

Alicia Bayer wrote:Some edible plants that produce a lot of foods for both bears and people that we enjoy (and that are cheap to get and plant or can be grown from seeds or transplanted starts):

apples and crab apples
sunchokes (do bears dig up roots?) -- my friends with sunchokes/Jerusalem artichokes all end up with more than they can keep up with every fall
black raspberries (also good for making barriers)
mulberries (they also grow very quickly and produce quickly)
greens (not sure if bears care about greens) like lambsquarters, nettles, curly dock (which also makes good seeds for baking)
anything in the mint family is pretty hard to overharvest because it spreads so quickly and happily -- wild mint, lemon balm, bee balm, etc. (we use these for teas and medicine, especially lemon balm)

For the biggest quantity, fruit and nut trees are going to be the best.  We grow apples from seed on the kitchen counter and then you can transplant them once they get a few inches tall.  They are not true to the parent variety but if you're growing for cider or sauce it doesn't matter much -- or for feeding a hungry bear that eats up everything else.

Yeah, bears will dig. That being said, I was wondering about apple trees. Do they need lots of water? Obviously the place I'd be putting them is far from a faucet. I was thinking about the east side of the hill just on our property.

Bears is a different ball game altogether i believe, climbing, fast running, digging animals with gigantic strong arms and teeth that eat what we eat. We don't have them here, so i probably say something dumb. I take the risk to do so, because if even 1 thing i say hits home a fellow spirit might benefit in his natural ways. We're simply incapable of physically keeping them out, so we'll have to outsmart them. This will take some knowledge of levels native peoples had, i don't think there's another way.

I missed what kind of bears they are, black, brown, grizzly, what more have you? A mix.. I think that studying their diets and behaviorisms is key.
I would try and find out what we eat that they don't and if it wants to grow where you are multiply that and learn to cook and store that in differing ways. Are they fast learners?

I would imagine they take fruits at peak ripeness or even at what we would call overripe. They just skim the best and easiest. Learn to get there before they do, to partly pick unripe fruits, learn to make those good for you and store them where they can't reach.

A little anecdote.
I have planted many hazelnut trees, people more looking at the negative side of things said squirrels will just take them all. Not wanting to dismiss them i looked into that. Turned out when you plant enough, if you're not physically protecting the hazels, you'll always lose some to squirrels. But at some point they'll stop collecting them, because they feel they have  enough. An area can only contain so many squirrels, because they cannot only live of hazels, they need other stuff too. And if that is not there, because i didn't plant it, then there is a maximum squirrel density to be expected.
I don't know if this principle one on one translated to bears as they're more versatile and intelligent than squirrels.
But if their numbers are limited/topped off by say salmon flows, then i would assume if there would be a lot more berries and what you gather will not increase their numbers significantly. You might by increasing the berry/apple flow not increase their numbers, because they are limited by a flow which is out of your control. Moose or something maybe. A combination I don't know, that will take studying. If it is limited, that opens a window for propagating wild berries. I would say the easiest is take cuttings when gathering in autumn and plant them straight away to root. Learn to propagate berries in an easy way. It took me years and only this year to learn to grow blackcurrants from seeds. I never realized they lose viability when they dry out until i asked on a Permies like forum. Now i freeze them until winter than store them in the refridgerator with dampish sand until they pop roots and then plant them in favorable conditions in spring. I would say plant life adapted itself to the bears spreading the seeds in their faeces, a much simpler way of doing things as usual. Bear faeces probably contain tons of seeds and could maybe be used if it doesn't make humans ill.

Hope this helps a bit, good luck.

Hugo Morvan wrote:
I missed what kind of bears they are, black, brown, grizzly, what more have you? A mix.. I think that studying their diets and behaviorisms is key.
I would try and find out what we eat that they don't and if it wants to grow where you are multiply that and learn to cook and store that in differing ways. Are they fast learners?

Thanks, Hugo! To answer your question we have black bears and grizzlies (brown bears). I'm familiar with their eating habits. Both are omnivores, with grizzlies being more willing to eat more meat. Around here, deer fawns and elk calves are often prey items to both black bears and grizzlies. Grizzlies will take down deer, black bears, and about anything else they can get their claws into. Since we're inland, fish is only a small part of their diets here. Doesn't mean they wouldn't like salmon, but our rivers near us don't have much salmon. We do have inland salmon in some lakes, but the picts of Alaskan brown bears going after salmon swimming upstream aren't what you see here.

I have a short video that was taken by a neighbor several years back of a grizzly out by some nearby ponds. Maybe a couple miles away from us, so we know they're there. The only bears we've seen have been primarily black bears, although there was that huge bear on the porch that might have been a grizzly who visited us in the middle of the night. 😱😱😱

Bears are clever and have noses that are better than dogs. They are tenacious and fast learners. They'll raid trash, so anything that smells edible is fair game. What's more, most people don't know that after you use bear deterrent spray, items that were touched by the spray need to be cleaned up because as the capsicum fades, it can actually attract bears.  So, other than keeping trash in bear resistant containers, locking up any attractants, our anti-bear llama and electric fence around the goats and poultry, and keeping an eye out, there's really not much we can do.

It would be nice to know what wild foods to look for now that it's October in Montana's western mountains, but I  suspect the bears have gotten them. Grouse has been scarce this year, too. Ah well.

Wow, I only have to deal with squirrels and that's bad enough!

Your elderberries should propagate very easily, like stick a piece in the ground easy , so that might help.
I don't know if they will eat walking onions, but they are also easy to grow/propagate.

Good luck!

Consider planting zucchini then you will have enough for your family, the bears and your neighbors.

Yeah, I do wonder if they'll eat onions? Most non-human mammals don't. Do you have any tasty wild alliums in your area? Ramps or such?

Eino Kenttä wrote:Yeah, I do wonder if they'll eat onions? Most non-human mammals don't. Do you have any tasty wild alliums in your area? Ramps or such?

I've only seen them on a hillside in the higher mountains, and they were pretty small. One person in my family has an intolerance for onions, so that's out. (shrug)