Grizzly bears have made such a comeback across eastern Montana that in 2017, the state hired its first-ever prairie-based grizzly manager: wildlife biologist Wesley Sarmento. 

For some seven years, Sarmento worked to keep both the bears, which are still listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and the humans, who are sprawling into once-wild spaces, out of trouble. Based in the small city of Conrad, population 2,553, he acted sort of like a first responder, trying to defuse potentially dangerous situations. He even got caught in some himself—which is why, before he left the role to pursue a PhD, he turned to drones to get the job done. 

The bear necessities

Sarmento was studying mountain goats in Glacier National Park when he first started working with bears. To better understand how goats responded to the apex predator, he dressed up in a bear costume once a week for over three years. 

When he later started as grizzly manager, he often drove long distances to push bears away from farms. Bears are drawn to spilled or leaking grains, and an open silo quickly turns into a buffet. Sarmento would typically arrive armed with a shotgun, cracker shells, and bear spray, but after he narrowly escaped getting mauled one day, he knew he had to pivot.

“In that moment,” he says, “I was like, I am gonna get myself killed.”

A bird’s-eye view

Sarmento first turned to two Airedale dogs, a breed known for deterring bears on farms, but the dogs were easily sidetracked. Meanwhile, drones were slowly becoming more common tools for biologists in a range of activities, including counting birds and mapping habitats.

He first took one into the field in 2022, when a grizzly mom and two cubs were found rummaging around in a silo outside of town. The drone’s infrared sensors helped him quickly find their location, and he used the aircraft’s sound to drive them away from the property. (Researchers suspect bears instinctively dislike the whir of blades because it sounds like a swarm of bees.) “The whole thing was so clean and controlled,” he says. “And I did it all from the safety of my truck.”

Since then, the flying machine that Sarmento bought for $4,000—a fairly simple model with a thermal camera and 30 minutes of battery life—has shown its potential for detecting grizzlies in perilous terrain he’d otherwise have to approach on foot, like dense brush or hard-to-reach river bottoms.

A new technological foundation

Now studying wildlife ecology at the University of Montana, Sarmento is hoping to design a drone campus police can use to deter black bears from school grounds. In the future, he hopes, AI image recognition might be broadly integrated into his wildlife management work—maybe even helping drones identify bears and autonomously divert them from high-traffic areas.

All this helps keep bears from learning behaviors that lead to conflict with people—which typically ends badly for the bear and is occasionally fatal for humans.

“The out-of-the-box technology doesn’t exist yet, but the hope is to keep exploring applications,” he says. “Drones are the next frontier.” 

Emily Senkosky is a writer with a master’s degree in environmental science journalism from the University of Montana.