Conservation Heroes
Wesley Sarmento - Using Drones & Dogs to Keep Bears and People Safe
January 2025
During a conversation at Missoula's Draught Works Brewing Co., Wesley Sarmento discussed his work using drones and dogs to manage bear encounters. The former Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks specialist, who now studies Wildlife Biology as a PhD student at the University of Montana, sat down with GTMA's Ashley Sherburne in December to share his experience with this unique approach to bear management.
For a deeper dive into this research, check out Wesley's new study: Drones outperform dogs for hazing bears: a comparison of carnivore aversive conditioning tools. You can also join us in Missoula on February 26 for Pint Night at Imagine Nation Brewing Company, featuring a special presentation by Wesley, “Dogs & Drones for Preventing Grizzly Bear Conflicts.”
Editor’s Note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.
First, what got you into wildlife biology?
I got into wildlife biology because I really liked animals. When I was signing up for a college major I was going to enlist in veterinary science. So I hopped on the University’s web page of all their degrees and started scrolling to veterinary science - and V is right next to W in the list of majors. I saw Wildlife Biology listed right next to Veterinary Science, and I said, “Huh, what's that?” I looked into it, and I immediately said, “That's for me.” I never thought twice about it. I have always had a lifetime affinity for wildlife. I think it's just something ingrained in me.
How did you start working with grizzlies?
I was always interested in working on grizzly bears, but for years I never got an opportunity so I was always working on moose or elk or whatever species I could get a job with. I ended up doing my masters on mountain goats in Glacier National Park, and I worked in a grizzly bear component to that because I was interested in grizzlies and the interaction between mountain goats and grizzly bears. So that project gave me a little bit of bear experience to get my foot in the door. Also, I got a little experience with bears when I worked in Alaska doing biodiversity surveys where we had to always keep bears out of our camps because it was remote backcountry–[we were] dropped off by a bush plane and left in the wilderness for a month.
I finished up my masters and I was applying for different jobs. I applied for a job working for Dan Carney for Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife, and I ended up getting the job! That was my first permanent wildlife biology job. I was making 12 bucks an hour with two college degrees, but I didn’t care. I was just happy to have a job and to get the opportunity to work with grizzlies. I kind of cut my teeth working for Carney up there on the Rez - he showed me how to trap and handle grizzly bears, and the basics like conflict prevention, electric fencing and securing attractants and that sort of thing. Then a new grizzly bear management position opened up in Conrad and I applied for that and ended up getting it.
What were some of the methods that you used before you started using drones?
I started with just the basics, what everyone has, and that's a truck and a shotgun. It doesn't matter where you're at, every bear manager has a truck and a shotgun. And with that shotgun specifically for hazing, we'd use non-lethal deterrents–cracker shells, bean bag rounds, rubber rounds, that sort of thing–to try to chase off bears. Working for Carney, he was really big into cracker shells, which is basically just like a firecracker that's shot out of a shotgun. We don't shoot it directly at the bear, just near the bear, and it creates like a light and auditory stimulus that's akin to a firecracker going off, and it scares them away. So those are the basic tools that I started with.
Then after a couple of years of leading bear management efforts, I realized that the truck and shotgun weren’t enough. What ended up happening is I got called out on a bear call one day near Valier, and there was a big old boar grizzly near a house in a shrub row. It was a family and they had three little kids, so I needed to get this bear out of there so their kids and their livestock would be safe. It was a really rainy day, and I couldn't drive my truck up close to the shrub row because my truck would have gotten stuck. So I went in on foot with just this shotgun, and I was shooting cracker shells into this shrub row, and this huge bear ended up charging out at me. Luckily I was able to pump off a cracker shell right in front of the bear and that got it running away. But after that I was like, “I'm going to get myself hurt or killed. I need to do something different here.” Well, dogs were supposed to be this wonderful tool…so I decided to get a couple of bear dogs, and I ended up getting Airedales because the local community really favors that breed, and conservation outcomes are shown to be more successful when they're developed with local community perceptions in mind. I bought one, and then the other one was donated by Rock Creek Airedales out of Oklahoma.
How effective did the dogs prove to be?
By and large, I found that the dogs were not very effective at chasing bears away. I had trouble getting the dogs to specifically seek out bears.
There were a couple things going on. Number one, the dogs had trouble detecting the bears. Out on the prairie, a lot of times, I'll see a bear like 500 plus yards away. The dogs just can't see something that far away. And if there's not a specific scent trail for them to follow, then they just don't detect the bears. Then the other part of it is the dogs just went after whatever they detected first: porcupines, feral cats, deer, skunks. Both my bear dogs have gotten into at least six porcupines. After a number of those incidents we had to be like, “Well, we're done for the day," which obviously, if you're trying to deal with bears, you don't want to have to stop and have to leave for the vet. You know, it could have been just that my particular dogs weren't great, maybe another breed or different individuals could have done a better job, but I didn't find any evidence suggesting that dogs are very good for hazing bears specifically.
There are dogs in other contexts I have found to be very effective…dogs that are selectively bred to just be protective of whatever they're there to protect. Traditionally it's livestock, but we took large livestock guard dogs and put them into a different context and say, “Let's have them not protect livestock, let's have them protect people and people's houses.” And we found that they were effective at keeping bears away from houses.
What motivated you to start using drones?
I was finding the dogs weren't very effective, and I was still needing something to be able to address this issue…because the truck, as I mentioned before, was constantly limited by wet fields, fences, canals, and planted fields. I didn't want to go ripping up people's crops. I needed something that could get out and actually chase these bears without me having to drive out to them. With drone technology really progressing, that was the next step.
Were there previous studies about using drones to haze grizzlies? Did other people use drones for that purpose?
There had never been any studies on hazing wildlife with drones. At the time it had never been done before. So my study and then another study that just came out recently were the first two studies. This other study was on wolves in Oregon. They did find that using a night watch with a drone helped reduce livestock depredation by wolves.
Are you concerned about bears becoming habituated?
I didn't find any evidence of bears habituating to drones.
There were a couple times that the drone didn't work. One occasion was a sow trying to kick off her two-year-old cub, so she was already in this mindset of standing her ground, and “get away from me.” And her youngster was in the mindset of just trying to stay close to mom. And it was thick brush, so they had really good cover. It just wasn’t the right situation.
The other [situation] was at a bone pit, and there was a sow with three yearlings. [The drone] did push her away, but she went very slow. It was April, really snowy, and the fact that she had three yearlings with her, she probably felt pretty safe with all four of them there. And then I think her drive for the resources…she had a really high demand for food at that point and there was no other food available. So she was probably more willing to increase her risk for those limited resources.
How close do you have to get the drones to them for it to be effective?
Some bears would react like 50 yards away. As soon as they detected the drone, they would start taking off. They didn't like it. I wonder if that's because it sounds like a swarm of bees, and bears like honey, and they probably don't like it when they hear the whole swarm coming out. Or, [bears] also go after bird eggs a lot, so they're getting dive bombed by adult birds. Or it might just be that it's a novel object. If we saw a UFO, we'd probably run too.
Is there any risk to the bear that you know of?
There has been a study that black bears experience an elevated heart rate when there's a drone around, and so almost undoubtedly they experience a little bit of stress. The benefit of chasing the bear away and teaching it not to be around people–to fear people–far outweighs that negative of it experiencing a little bit of short term stress. Because if we don't teach them to stay away from people they're going to end up getting into trouble, having to be relocated or euthanized, or someone's going to shoot them in self-defense, or they're going to get hit on a highway. So we have to teach them to stay away from us, and sometimes that has to entail some stress. They need a negative stimulus to learn to stay away from us.
I would imagine that animals can let go of stress faster than humans do.
Short-term stress is a normal thing. It’s just a normal part of being an animal.
After you've hazed a bear from an area, have you had them return? How many times do you have to do it to keep them away for good?
Most of the time, the bears don't return, unless there's a really high value resource there…bears will return to a bone pit or cornfield, for example. Those are the times when a bear typically returns to a place. But when they do come back, it's usually at night under the cover. They're more weary about it. And so they're not as bold, which is really good. They do learn to fear people.
What about people who are interested in using drones to haze grizzly bears themselves? What are the rules about using drones to haze grizzlies off of private property?
As of now, using a drone to haze grizzly bears is not an authorized means of deterrence. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has a list of things that you can do to deter grizzly bears. You can’t cause injury to a grizzly bear because they’re a protected species. I think in the future, if the US Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to open that avenue, I think it would be a very safe and effective way to give landowners and agricultural producers another tool in the toolbox to non-lethally chase bears away and aversively condition them, as long as they’re being responsible about it.
Is there anything else that you would want to share about your experience with using drones?
The drones are so much more effective beyond just hazing bears. If I got a bear call, it would help me locate the bear, and that was huge. Because a lot of times before the drones, I would get a bear call, and I show up to a person’s place, then couldn’t find the bear. With the drone, I could really search people's property, and it helped me locate bears, so I could more confidently say to a person, “The bear's gone.” Also, when there was an injured bear, it was really effective at locating bears. The drone was also great at checking on collared bears–seeing if they had cubs and such.
Do you think other bear managers will now start using drones?
We’re already seeing other bear managers starting to get drones. I would assume we will see other wildlife managers around the world starting to use drones. I presented on this research at the International Bear Association Conference this past fall and people were pretty excited about it.
If I was still in that job, I would feel naked without that tool. It would be like not having a truck or not having a shotgun. Dogs? I can do without the dogs. But the drone? No, it's an essential tool.
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If you would like to learn more about Wesley’s research and perspective on grizzly bear conflict prevention, join us in Missoula on Wednesday, February 26 for Pint Night at Imagine Nation Brewing Company, featuring a special presentation by Wesley, “Dogs & Drones for Preventing Grizzly Bear Conflicts.”
Read Wesley's study for more details about his groundbreaking methods in bear management.
About Wesley
Wesley is a National Science Foundation Fellow at the University of Montana where he is studying bison reintroduction on the Blackfeet Reservation and Glacier International Peace Park for his PhD project with the Boone and Crocket program. Prior to his fellowship, Wesley was a grizzly bear manager on the East Front of the Rockies where he developed new techniques to keep people safe and bears out of trouble. For his masters research, he studied mountain goat response to shrinking snowpack and their interactions with bears and people. Beyond that, he lived in Mongolia for a year as a National Geographic Young Explorer and worked on a number of other projects as a field technician. Wesley is a Blackfeet Descendent and grew up in Colorado. He enjoys hunting, art, spending time with family, exploring new places, working with dogs/horses, and tinkering on his small farm.