The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
Just about anywhere in the state of North Dakota, there have been reports in recent years of unusual animal sightings.
These are animals that through recent history, at least, haven’t been seen in the state. But from 2000 on, numerous witnesses have come forward to tell their stories of what they may have seen.
• First of all, moose are not uncommon to North Dakota. They’ve always been along the northern tier of counties, most generally in the Turtle Mountains near Bottineau and in the Pembina Gorge in the Walhalla area.
But moose have been migrating. We’ve been made aware that the moose population in the northeast had some sort of brain worm, killing a lot of the herd, so the healthy animals moved west. Now, the majority of the population is in the northwest, from Kenmare to the Montana state line and to the Canadian border.
That’s not so unusual. What is odd is that moose have also been spotted in Jamestown, Edgeley, Ellendale and even into northeast South Dakota near Groton. Historically, moose have never been in these areas, at least not that we are aware of.
• Another wandering critter is the black bear. In the 1890s, there was a black bear sighted near Pembina and for the longest time, that was the only confirmed sighting of a black bear in state history. We’d have to go back to territorial days to find other reports.
But, since 2000, there have been numerous bears spotted in North Dakota, and not just in pockets of locations, but scattered all over. Would you believe someone saw a black bear in the city of Fargo? There was a report out of Mayville and it could have been the same animal.
Interestingly, however, they’ve also been seen near Center, in Oliver County, in Pembina, near Bottineau, near Carpio in Ward County and Bowbells. A black bear was actually hit by a car and killed on Interstate 94 near Hebron.
That tells us there is more than one bear. Sure, the Mayville and Fargo sightings may have been the same bruin, but one bear isn’t going to criss-cross the state like that.
• For many years the North Dakota Game and Fish Department wouldn’t confirm that mountain lions were living in North Dakota. But people had sworn they had seen them, or had seen evidence of them.
When I was working at the Minot Daily News, a man from Garrison called and said he had seen mountain lion tracks in the snow and sent some photographs to prove it.
I was later sent on assignment to interview this man about his find. I’m a journalist not a wild game biologist, but it didn’t take rocket science to tell me the paw prints in the snow were definitely from a large animal that would be consistent with a mountain lion.
Numerous other sightings have been reported and some ranchers in the Badlands had killed mountain lions that were threatening their livestock.
Now, there are actually two hunting seasons in the state.
• Do you know what a marten is? It’s a small, fur-bearing animal similar to a weasel or mink. They were said to be extinct in the state.
But I saw one myself on the banks of the Des Lacs River at Carpio. It wasn’t a weasel and it wasn’t a mink, nor was it a fisher, so when I got home I started looking up the characteristics of this animal and determined it was a marten.
As it turns out, documents show marten were common along the Des Lacs River during the time La Verendrye came through here in the 1700s and later when the Northwest Company had hunting expeditions in the area.
Months after I had seen the one marten, a report came out of Belcourt, that someone there had also seen a marten.
Urban sprawl, farmland, a good food source, disease are all reasons why these animals have been migrating in the past 25 years. They’re definitely not extinct and are more plentiful than most of us realize.
