A caller tells a Montana wildlife control company there's a bear in the yard — and that's the wrong number, not a booking. FWP's own protocol routes bear and mountain lion conflicts to its own specialists, not a private trapper. **The hardest part of answering a wildlife-control phone right now isn't speed — it's knowing which calls are actually yours to take.**
What Jobs Can a Montana Wildlife Control Company Actually Book?
Most of what comes in is ordinary: raccoons in an attic, a skunk under the porch, squirrels in a soffit, bats in a chimney. McCoy Wildlife Control draws the industry line plainly — pest control treats "insects and small nuisance creatures" like ants and termites with chemical or natural treatments, wildlife control handles larger animals like raccoons, squirrels, and bats in a home using humane trapping, relocation, and exclusion, and animal control is a government function limited to "emergency response and public safety enforcement" for a dangerous or injured animal in a public place (McCoy Wildlife, 2026). A Montana company's day-to-day booking sits squarely in that middle category.
Licensing backs up where that line sits. Montana FWP's own furbearer-trapping rules require a trapping license only for a specific list of regulated species with set seasons — beaver, bobcat, fisher, marten, mink, muskrat, otter, and swift fox — with a resident general trapper license running $20 and a nonresident license $250 (Montana FWP, 2026). Raccoons, skunks, squirrels, and bats aren't on that regulated list, which is exactly why a wildlife control company can book and run those jobs as routine business. Bears and mountain lions aren't on it either — because they're never a private trapping job to begin with.
Why Is 2026 Such an Extreme Bear-Conflict Year in Montana?
Because the natural food bears depend on before winter mostly failed. By late August 2026, south-central Montana's Region 5 had logged roughly 400 bear conflicts — more than double the 175 reported for all of 2025 — and the Red Lodge area alone had topped 200, with 9 black bears euthanized in Carbon County, 7 of them in Red Lodge (MTPR, 2026). "This year has really been kind of off the charts in terms of conflicts," FWP spokesperson Chrissy Webb told Montana Public Radio (MTPR, 2026). Further north, FWP euthanized 14 bears in the Bozeman area in a single week this fall, with 68 grizzlies killed statewide in 2026 and relocations running 16-plus against a typical year's 8 to 12 (KBZK, 2026). "Bear activity in urban places like Bozeman and Livingston has been quite high this year," FWP information officer Morgan Jacobsen said (KBZK, 2026).
What Should Happen on the Phone When Someone Says "There's a Bear"?
That call volume is exactly what's flooding wildlife control lines across the state this fall — but a real share of it was never a booking to begin with. A phone system built for this trade needs to ask the right first question: what animal, and where. A raccoon in an attic or a skunk under a deck is a normal intake — species, location, access point, timeline. A bear or mountain lion, especially one acting aggressively, getting into trash or a bird feeder, or hurting a pet or livestock, isn't a scheduling question at all. It's a redirect, and it needs to happen on the first call, not after a technician drives out and discovers the job was never theirs to take.
Wildlife Control Company vs. FWP: Who Actually Handles the Call?
| Situation | A Private Wildlife Control Company | Montana FWP |
|---|---|---|
| Raccoon in the attic, skunk under the porch | Standard bookable job — trapping or exclusion | Not FWP's role |
| Bear getting into trash or a bird feeder | Can't legally trap or relocate a bear | This is the call — FWP bear specialists |
| Bear or mountain lion acting aggressively, or hurting a pet or livestock | Still not a private job | Report immediately to FWP's bear specialists |
| A person or the animal is in immediate danger | — | 911 first, then FWP |
When Should a Caller Skip the Wildlife Company and Call FWP Directly?
Any time a bear or mountain lion is involved — plainly and without hedging. Montana FWP's own guidance says to report conflicts to the nearest FWP bear management specialist, and clarifies that "seeing a bear is not necessarily a reportable encounter," but any bear that "displayed aggressive or defensive behavior toward people, livestock or pets, or damaged property" should be reported right away (Montana FWP, 2026). FWP's standing prevention advice — securing trash, pet food, grills, and bird feeders — is also worth repeating back to a caller before anyone commits to a truck roll, since removing the attractant sometimes solves the problem before a visit is even needed (Montana FWP, 2026). A wildlife control company's phone doing its job well here isn't the one that books every call as revenue. It's the one that recognizes a bear call for what it is and gets that caller to the right specialist immediately — treating that as a correct outcome, not a lost sale.
That urgency has a shelf life. Bears across Montana spend roughly August through November in hyperphagia, packing on fat before denning, and "by December, most of our bears have begun to hibernate" (The Western News, 2026). The current call surge will thin out on its own over the next several weeks. What doesn't go away once the bears den up is the underlying intake problem: a front desk or phone system that can't tell a furbearer job from a big-game redirect is going to mis-book calls again next spring, storm season, or whenever the next spike hits — bear year or not.