Two grizzlies seen swimming across Montana lake in video

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Witnesses who filmed two grizzly bears swimming across a lake in northwestern Montana Saturday afternoon said they were amazed by the sight.

"It was pretty crazy," Jason Runstrom said of the unusual encounter on Lake Frances.

Lake Frances is near Pondera County's Valier, a community of 500 people 82 miles northwest of Great Falls. Runstrom was out fishing with Chelsea Alfson and Kevin Bobick when they spotted the bears around 1 p.m.

At first, they saw something bobbing in the water, Alfson said. Maybe birds? That's what they thought.

As they got closer, they realized it was two bears. They watched the two young grizzly bears from about 30 feet away, capturing the moment on video.

"Well, guys," one of them is heard saying as they slow the boat to watch. "Right here we have two grizzly bears in the lake."

The anglers, from the Fort Shaw area, were driving to the other side of the lake, toward the Lighthouse Restaurant, when they spotted the bears about 300 yards from shore.

The depth at that location was 27 feet, according to the fish finder. The water temperature was 51 degrees.

"They knew we were there," Runstrom said of the bears. "They didn't want anything to do with us."

The bears swam away and the fisherman took off, too, but watched from binoculars as the bears made it to the east shore of the lake.

Wesley Sarmento, a bear management specialist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said the bears were about 2 1/2 years old and likely siblings that recently were kicked out by their mothers because breeding season has begun.

"So these bears are very inexperienced, or dumb, if you will," Sarmento said. "They haven't learned to fear people, and they are more likely to be seen out in the open during the day."

Before they were seen in the lake, FWP received reports the bears were on an island where they may have been feeding on bird eggs, Sarmento said. 

"It's likely they got spooked by people and then took off (swimming)," he said.

The video shows the bears briefly fighting at one point as they swim in the lake.

Sarmento believes the bears fought because they were agitated about the presence of people and instinctively took it out on each other.

Ideally, Sarmento said, it would have been better if the anglers had not gotten so close to the bears.

Bears that learn to become comfortable in the presence of people can cause problems down the road, Sarmento said.

"These are bears we want to proactively do adverse conditioning on to teach them to be afraid of people," said Sarmento, noting FWP had also received a report Friday about the bears.

FWP is now tracking their movements in order to perform the adverse conditioning, Sarmento said.

Residents should secure food so they don't attract bears, he added.