In Yellowstone National Park, it had been roughly five years since wildlife managers had to euthanize a bear — black or grizzly — for becoming food-conditioned or habituated around humans.
But that all changed this summer. First, park officials killed a grizzly who was flipping dumpsters cemented to the ground near the Old Faithful geyser in May. And in early July, park staff killed a habituated black bear that had learned to climb food storage poles for campers’ food.
To understand why bears are suddenly exhibiting problematic behavior in the national park, to the point where they’re losing their lives, SFGATE contacted both the park and a local nonprofit specializing in bear awareness. The answer was complicated, mostly because the two bears were different species and exhibited different behaviors.
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The grizzly bear killed this spring had cracked the code on bear-resistant trash cans and dumpsters: in some cases, using its long claws to rip receptacles out of the ground to spill out the trash inside.
The black bear, on the other hand, learned to obtain food in a different way.
FILE: A black bear climbs a tree near a stream on May 18, 2024, in Yellowstone National Park.
Jonathan Newton/Getty ImagesOn June 7, it crushed an unoccupied tent at the backcountry campsite in the northern part of the park, a highly trafficked trail near Blacktail Deer Creek.
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And then a few weeks later, the bear’s behavior escalated. All backcountry campsites in the park have bear-resistant food storage boxes or food storage poles that campers throw ropes over to hang their food more than 10 feet off the ground. But on July 11, the bear climbed the pole, grabbed food bags and promptly gorged herself. According to a Yellowstone news release, park staff euthanized the female adult black bear on July 11 after “a series of concerning incidents.”
Evan Stout, owner and operator of Yellowstone Wildlife Guide Company and the program coordinator for Bear Awareness Gardiner, a local nonprofit group, said that while the events happened in somewhat close proximity, the bears’ behavior is actually pretty different. The grizzly, he said, was a “crazy outlier.”
“One in 10,000 bears is going to figure that out,” Stout said. The black bear, he speculated, had likely already eaten human food and was just pursuing it more aggressively this time.
FILE: A food pole for hanging food out of the reach of bears at a backcountry campsite in Yellowstone National Park in 2018.
Jacob W. Frank/NPS/ Jacob W. FrankGetting a taste of human food can be a death sentence for bears, as they may start to act aggressively to obtain it in the future. This act “posed a clear threat to visitor safety” and warranted euthanasia, according to the news release.
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“We go to great lengths to protect bears and prevent them from gaining access to human food in all areas of the park,” said Kerry Gunther, Yellowstone bear management biologist, in a news release. “But occasionally, a bear outsmarts us or overcomes our defenses. When that happens, we sometimes have to make the difficult decision to remove the bear from the population to protect people and property.”
The last time a black bear was killed for similar behavior in Yellowstone was in July 2020, when another adult female black bear entered a campsite near the Hellroaring Trailhead, bit a woman on her arm and head, and nipped at the hand of a child. The bear then ate food that wasn’t yet hung on a storage pole.
FILE: A young black bear with cinnamon-colored fur crosses the road in Yellowstone National Park.
Paolo Picciotto/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesPrior to this summer, the last time staff felt it was necessary to kill a grizzly was even further back in time, in September 2017. A grizzly got into tents and ate human food at backcountry campsites near Heart Lake.
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Yellowstone declined to make Gunther, the bear biologist, available for an interview on the rash of bear incidents or what might have changed this summer to prompt increased human-bear conflict in the park. “The information we have to share is in the news release,” said spokesperson Linda Veress.
It’s hard to pinpoint why bears and humans may be coming into closer proximity around food this summer. But visitation in the park is at an all-time high, and “of course, record visitation doesn’t help,” Stout said.
Over 566,000 people came to Yellowstone in May — a record number of visitors to the park, up 8% from the same time last year. And while numbers haven’t been released for June or July yet, visitation so far this year is up 6% from last year.
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More people can mean more available food — be that full dumpsters or more campers in need of education. And while Yellowstone hasn’t released specifics on its staffing situation, National Park Service staff are generally spread thin this summer, having lost 24% of its permanent workforce since the Donald Trump administration’s layoffs, retirement offers and deferred resignations began in February.
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