Whitebark pine seeds could be abundant this fall, giving some wildlife managers hope that the high-protein food source will help keep grizzly bears out of lower elevations where they’re more likely to get into trouble.

Bear and tree biologists report good cone production in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and elsewhere around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

That might help prevent a repeat of last fall, when researchers reported 48 grizzly deaths, 37 of which could be attributed to human causes. Twenty of the bears were killed by hunters. Officials say the actual number of deaths is likely higher.

The number of bears that are killed is especially important this year because a review that could land the bear back on the endangered species list would be triggered if a certain threshold is met.

Last year was considered a poor year for whitebark pine cones.

So researchers hope a good whitebark pine cone crop will keep grizzlies from seeking out nutrients from hunter-killed carcasses or in developed areas, resulting in fewer problems this year.

However, some say diseases such as blister rust and insects such as the mountain pine beetle have killed so many whitebark pines in the region that even a great cone crop won’t help bears avoid conflicts.

“The trees that are remaining alive have a lot of healthy, big cones,” said Grand Teton National Park ecologist Nancy Bockino.

“They’re dark purple, and they are absolutely beautiful,” she said. “Some of the branches have eight cones crammed on there. This is definitely the biggest year that I’ve seen in a while. It seems like everyone is saying that they have cones.”

Bockino said the cones take two years to develop.

“Last year they were little tiny, like cherry tomatoes,” she said. “Now, they are growing so quickly.”  

Once the seeds develop, red squirrels will shear the cones from the branches and stash the seeds away for the winter. Grizzly bears typically raid the squirrel stashes for the seeds.

Chuck Schwartz, leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said his field crews are beginning to get counts of whitebark pine stands.

“What they’re telling me is that when they’re hiking in ... it appears to be a really good whitebark pine [cone] crop this year,” he said.

Researchers typically see lower rates of conflict between bears and humans and fewer bear deaths in good cone production years.

“We know that bears move to lower elevations when there isn’t good whitebark,” he said. “Bears tend to forage more on meat and, in the fall, some of that meat is basically hunter-killed elk. They’ll compete with hunters for a carcass. It puts them in closer proximity to hunters, and that increases the chance that there is going to be a conflict.”  

By some estimates, hunters leave 300 tons of edible material in the woods each year, Schwartz said.

“On the one hand,” he said, “hunters are providing good calories for bears. On the other hand, occasionally they kill bears.”

Schwartz didn’t go as far as to predict fewer deaths this year, but he said he was hopeful that whitebark seeds will keep conflicts down.

Louisa Willcox, a senior wildlife advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council, was less optimistic.

“The picture [for whitebark pine in general] is bleak,” she said. “Some areas are 70 to 80 percent dead. A good year is still a bad year when a lot [of trees are] dead. That is not a good thing for bears.

“You might expect a lower mortality rate this fall because there are fewer bears, but not because of [a good cone crop],” Willcox said. “The ecosystem is collapsing.”