As an Amskapi Pikuni (Blackfeet) descendant raised in Colorado, Wesley Sarmento has always had a deep connection to nature. While many Native Americans he grew up with faced challenges like mental health and addiction issues, Wesley found solace in the natural world around him. “It’s my belief that wildlife and wild places are essential to human health,” he said, “and so it is my goal to promote wild things for the benefit of all people.” Currently, Wesley is a graduate student at the University of Montana and one of the participants in the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership, a $40,000 research scholarship program.

Wesley is also a researcher for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP). In this capacity, he has been studying grizzly bear management, particularly how people and wild bears can safely coexist. Grizzly bears were listed as a threatened species in the early 2000s. Since then, the United States Department of Fish and Wildlife Service has worked to protect and restore grizzly populations within six key regions, four of which are in Montana state parks. Conservation efforts have been mostly positive, with certain populations, such as those in Yellowstone, being removed from the endangered species list.

Grizzly bears are among the largest bears in North America. An adult male can measure upwards of 7.5 feet and weigh nearly 860 pounds. While grizzly bears do not typically seek humans as prey, they will attack people if they feel threatened. The bears are also curious and are known to encroach upon homes, farms, and campsites in search of food. As conservation efforts continue and bear populations grow, management studies become increasingly important. Wesley has been researching ways to safely scare grizzly bears away to protect private property and humans while maintaining a balance that also ensures the bears’ safety.

In a 2024 issue of Wildlife Society’s Journal of Wildlife Management, Wesley published a paper titled “Bear Deterrence with Scare Devices: A Non‐Lethal Tool in the Use‐of‐Force Continuum.” In this paper, he outlines several methods for scaring off grizzly bears and evaluates the effectiveness of each method. These methods include spraying chemicals that smell and taste bad without harming the animals, spreading the urine or scat of competing predators, sound boxes, and motion-activated lights. Wesley found that most of these deterrents only worked temporarily, and primarily when a bear was alone. Bears would eventually get used to the deterrents, and if they were in a group, they would feel emboldened enough to ignore them.

Dedicated to finding better management tactics, Wesley continued his research, which was recently published in Frontiers in Conservation Science. In this study, Wesley compares the use of trained dogs, projectiles like paintballs, vehicles, and drones to haze or scare off wild bears. The drone Wesley deployed was an Autel EVO 2, a small, easy-to-use drone with a 30-minute flight time and a high-resolution thermal camera. The dogs used in the hazing study were trained Airedale terriers wearing Garmin Alpha Tracker electric collars. Working with FWP staff, Wesley recorded 163 hazing events involving both male and female bears, mostly adults. The experiment involved 52 vehicle, 46 projectile, 35 drone, and 30 dog hazing events.

All of these tactics, Wesley observed, were more effective than the previous methods he had studied. In his recently published paper, Wesley states that while all the methods performed well, the staff preferred the drone for its precision, maneuverability, and ease of use. The staff also felt that the drone was the safest hazing tool to achieve aversive behaviors, such as discouraging bears from returning to specific areas. “Drones were highly maneuverable and capable of precisely moving a bear exactly where I wanted the individual to go,” Wesley writes. “Several times bears attempted to dodge the drone and run in an errant direction, however, the speed and dexterity of the drone allowed for quick corrective actions to alter bear escape paths to be more suitable. For example, I was able to haze bears directly between houses to get them farther away from people.”

Wesley research highlights the growing potential of drones as an innovative and effective tool in wildlife management. “Drones are an exciting new and effective technology that has been thus far underutilized by conservation practitioners, while the future applications of this tool present a huge possibility of facilitating human coexistence with dangerous animals,” Wesley said. By blending modern technology with traditional conservation methods, Wesley’s work paves the way for safer, more sustainable interactions between humans and wildlife, offering hope for a balanced future where both can thrive.

Previous Drone News: