Grizzly Encounters with Bears

Yellowstone National Park — a bucket list trip! Geysers. Mountains. Waterfalls. Wildlife. And your family gets to experience Yellowstone 24-7 for the next three days as you camp inside of the park.

When you enter the campground, you pull up to the ranger station. The park ranger welcomes you, but before handing over your campsite number and map, the ranger gives you the “the talk.” What’s the talk? Well, it goes something like this...

“Welcome to Yellowstone! This is bear country, a habitat for 700 grizzly bears. For your safety and the safety of the bears, keep your campsite clean and store food and scented products like toothpaste, body wash, and sunscreen in the bear lockers. Every time you eat, please pick up crumbs and garbage. Throw away all trash in bear-proof trash containers. And never, never feed a bear. When bears eat human food, they may return looking for more and even become aggressive."

Grizzly bears do not mean to harm — or even bother — humans. When bears and humans meet, grizzlies often are just looking for their next meal. These bears have an incredible sense of smell — 2,100 times better than humans. But their noses and appetites get them into trouble when they raid campsites, livestock pastures, chicken coops, and backyard trash cans. Sadly, conflict between bears and humans can be life-threatening for these giant, brown bears.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GRIZZLIES

Grizzlies once roamed from California to Missouri and from Mexico to Alaska. But as Westward Expansion brought more people west during the 1800s and 1900s, people transformed bear country. Humans built towns, farms, ranches, roads, and a transcontinental railroad. They drove bears from their habitat and killed bears that they believed threatened their property. In the early 1900s, bear hunting became popular, and outdoorspeople sought bears for their coats and as stuffed trophies.

By the 1920s and 1930s, grizzly bears occupied less than 2% of their native habitat. Come the 1960s, only 600 to 800 grizzlies remained in the lower 48 states. With diminishing numbers, the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed grizzly bears as threatened in 1975.

Under ESA protections, grizzly bear numbers have grown in the last 50 years. According to National Geographic, between 1,400 and 1,700 grizzly bears now inhabit the contiguous United States. Grizzly bears shine as a conservation success story with their numbers increasing fivefold since 1975. They now live in the mountains and plains of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Washington.

HUMAN-BEAR CONFLICT

But these northwest lands changed dramatically since grizzly bears last inhabited them. Today grizzlies find ever-expanding towns, farms, ranches, and roads in what was once vast, open space. As a result, conflict between humans and bears has increased in recent decades. The Yellowstone region reported over 100 grizzly human-bear encounters in 2018.

Sadly, when humans and grizzlies meet, the bears almost always lose. Many westerners that live in grizzly territory consider the bears aggressive and bothersome. Every year, wildlife managers euthanize dozens of bears that disturb property in search of food, giving meaning to the saying  “a fed bear is a dead bear.” Montana Public Radio reported that 46 grizzly bears were killed and five bears relocated due to human-bear conflict in 2018 alone. According to National Geographic, in November 2020, two grizzlies were shot and dumped on a roadside. The following week in Montana, a second dead grizzly bear was found dead with its legs cut off, another victim of human-bear conflict.

FROM CONFLICT TO CO-EXISTENCE

Conservationists advocate that humans and grizzlies must coexist. Striving for coexistence means first changing human thoughts and feelings about bears. State and nonprofit organizations educate the public about grizzly bears and how to stay safe during bear encounters. The Montana Bear Education Working Group hands out bear spray, a non-lethal spray that sends bears running, at community events. With the help of a robotic bear that charges like a real one, bear educators demonstrate how to use the spray in close encounters with grizzlies.

Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation organization that protects animals and plants throughout America, helped ranchers build electric fences that zap grizzly bears that hunt cattle, sheep, and chickens. Defenders also purchased food storage lockers for the U.S. Forest Service to add to campgrounds around the northwest and helped fence garbage dumps to keep bears out.

James Jonkel, a biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks explains what must happen so that people and grizzlies can coexist. “The ideal is to have a clean, attractant-free [food and smells that attract bears] landscape where bears can pass through without learning bad habits,” says Jonkel. ​​With purposeful action to protect bears from tasty smells and food, communities and bears can live peacefully together.