The young male grizzly dug for roots, 35 yards from the road and only 150 yards from the Bridge Bay Campground in Yellowstone National Park.
A ranger stood between the bear and the two cars of tourists who stopped suddenly along Yellowstone Lake to get the precious picture of the threatened species. The bear ran past the campground and jumped into the lake next to the bridge and swam across the bay filled with boatloads of gawking anglers.
The bear’s proximity to Bridge Bay is not an anomaly in Yellowstone. The park’s grizzly habitat has been filled up in the last 25 years, so less dominant bears like this sub-adult have to live near human activity.
A week after a mother grizzly killed a hiker with one bite, the remarkable story is that it doesn’t happen more often.
Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park officials have successfully managed the growth of people and bears in the park with only one fatality in 25 years. Despite as many as 3.6 million visitors a year, Yellowstone only averages one grizzly bear-caused injury a year.
At the same time, visitors are getting more chances to see bears than they did when bear numbers were far lower. That’s because the professionals, including bear biologist and manager Kerry Gunther, have trained staff to keep the public safe, keep traffic moving and provide viewing opportunities at close range.
A mother and her cubs stood 15 yards from the road a week ago and most of June near the entrance of the Jackson Lake Lodge. She dug for roots, staying between the road and her cubs, as hundreds if not thousands of people got a close-up view as they drove past.
What the two national parks have done is successfully put in place a management plan where grizzly bears come first but human values are met. That’s how the Endangered Species Act envisioned management in prime habitat when passed by Congress in 1973.
Move outside the park and the issues aren’t as clear. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologists recently decided to kill another grizzly sow who had become habituated to humans. Because the people who ran the private campground were not requiring campers to keep a clean site, the bear had been getting into people food near tent sites at the campground and at residences in the area.
Garbage is like heroin to bears, and they keep coming back for more once they get a taste.
The Yellowstone sow was saved because she did nothing wrong and the hiker was at fault. This time, both humans and bears were the cause of the trouble, and officials decided the bear had to go.
“It is always frustrating to have to make this type of decision and remove a bear for things that could have been basically prevented by people,” said Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks bear specialist Kevin Fry.
