Editor’s note: This is the first of the four-part “Predators of the Prairie” series from Adams MultiMedia. Next: Has the Endangered Species Act done its job?

Since the birth of America, certain apex predators have roamed the Great Plains. Although the building up of civilization over the past couple centuries gradually reduced the presence of such beasts in Montana’s central-eastern region, wildlife officials suggest they never left; rather, they merely operate to some degree as wild bandits — dangerously elusive.

It is difficult to pinpoint the regularity of predators on the prairie lands of central-eastern Montana. There have been sporadic written accounts of grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions and wolves in the area dating back as far as the Lewis and Clark Expedition between 1

See Full Page