MISSOULA – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needs to do a better job of informing backcountry users how to avoid dangerous encounters with grizzly bears, an official with the agency says.
“We are providing education, but it’s not being received,” said Chris Servheen, coordinator for grizzly recovery with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The problem with communication is the illusion it’s actually happening. My candid opinion is we have not been very successful at this at all. Perhaps we need to go to a marketing firm on Madison Avenue – they’re really good at getting us to buy things we don’t need or want.”
Servheen, speaking Wednesday during the winter meeting of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, said the agency has devised sound strategies for humans to avoid conflicts with bears, but they aren’t being used.
The Missoulian reports that a preliminary review of 2011 bear encounters listed 83 incidents that resulted in two deaths, both in Yellowstone National Park. About 75 percent of the incidents took place in the Yellowstone National Park area and the rest in northwestern Montana. He said that four out of five times, no one was hurt.
About 38 percent of the incidents involved hunters, 35 percent hikers, and the rest a mix of anglers, campers and ranch-hands working in the backcountry. Servheen said part of the problem is that only 29 percent of the people charged by grizzlies carried pepper spray.
Officials said a female bear with clubs killed 57-year-old Brian Matayoshi of California on July 6. Officials decided not to kill the bear because it was behaving normally.
The same bear was linked through DNA with the death of 59-year-old John Wallace of Michigan in late August. The bear was killed Oct. 1 and her two cubs placed in the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center at West Yellowstone.
In the July attack, investigators said the attack was possibly triggered by the victim and his wife screaming and yelling as they ran from an approaching grizzly mother with cubs.
The August attack wasn’t witnessed by anyone, and officials said they might never know definitively whether the same bear killed both hikers. Evidence showed multiple bears, including the sow, were near Wallace’s body but not if the sow made any contact with Wallace.
The decision to euthanize the 250-pound female bear was meant to protect park visitors and staff, officials said.
Officials said Matayoshi and his wife, who weren’t carrying bear spray, ran from the bear screaming and yelling.
“Their behavior during the chase contributed to the behavior of the bear and resulted in the death of Mr. Matayoshi,” Servheen said.
Wallace was hiking alone and also wasn’t carrying bear spray.
Officials recommend hikers carry bear spray, not run from grizzlies, and not hike alone.
Meanwhile, a representative of the British Columbia Ministry of Environment said a new study there found more evidence of Canadian black bears making predatory attacks on humans.
“We’re used to defensive attacks by grizzly bears that are usually triggered by protecting cubs or food or space,” said Tony Hamilton. “But now we’re seeing black bears that have typically had no previous human contact looking at us as potential prey. We need to re-educate the public.”
He said trying to alert people to be non-confrontational around grizzlies but fight back against black bears is making the job for bear managers more difficult.
Correction: Earlier version of the story should have said 75 percent of grizzly bear conflicts happened in Yellowstone National Park area, not in the park alone.