A large male grizzly bear that’s been smashing house windows, breaking into vehicles and raising Hell in the tiny Yellowstone gateway town of Gardiner, Mont., might have been killed by wildlife agents on Thursday.
Although the bear’s fate remained uncertain that afternoon, the consensus among locals who spoke with Cowboy State Daily was that its behavior escalated to an unsafe point where it likely had to be put down And that saddens them.
Gardiner sits right at the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Locals said that they love having grizzlies and other wild critters for neighbors but are troubled that things got so out of hand with one particular bear.
Is The Bear Really Gone?
FWP spokesman Morgan Jacobson told Cowboy State Daily that he could only say that “information is forthcoming” about the grizzly that’s vexed townspeople and wildlife agents since early June.
Angela Tempo, who lives just outside of Gardiner, said the grizzly tried breaking into her house on July 1.
The bear broke a window “and had crawled halfway inside” when she scared it away by driving her vehicle at it.
During a telephone interview Thursday afternoon, she said that she’d heard that the bear had been killed at about 9 a.m. that morning roughly five miles from town.
An Evasive Bear
Though he couldn’t verify the ultimate outcome, Jacobson said the search for the grizzly has been challenging.
“We’ve had staff in Gardiner nightly for the better part of two weeks,” said Jacobson, who is the FWP information officer for southwest Montana.
“Just because we see the bear doesn’t mean we can capture it safely without creating additional human risks,” he said.
The availability of food sources – mostly unsecured garbage – is what probably drew the bear in and has kept him coming back, Jacobson said.
“Unsecured attractants have remained the biggest factor here in this case. The variety of attractants, and where they are, and the quantity available has been the biggest problem,” he said.
“We put an attractive element in our trap, but when attracting elements are widely available, it makes it difficult,” he added.
The bear has also been moving in and near town almost exclusively at night, Jacobson said.
Local resident Evan Stout – who heads the Bear Awareness Gardiner program – agreed that the grizzly’s night movements have been difficult to track.
“He’s actually been really savvy at avoiding people. We have tourists, and even some locals, people walking around Gardiner at all hours,” Stout told Cowboy State Daily.
“I don’t think he’s actively hunting people. If he were, it would be a much worse situation,” Stout added.
Not A Newcomer
Gardiner sits “right in the middle of prime grizzly habitat” so having bears near town, or even occasionally walking right through it, isn’t anything new for residents, Stout said.
And the grizzly in question has been around before, he added.
“This issue actually started years ago. This bear is no stranger to Gardiner,” Stout said. “For whatever reason, and we’re not sure why, this year the behavior has really escalated.”
The trouble started on June 6 and became particularly bad over the last couple of weeks, he said.
Like the other locals Cowboy State Daily talked to, Stout believes in the motto that “every bear problem starts out as a human problem.”
And so he blames the easy availability of garbage and other goodies for allowing things to go so far south with the bear.
Bear Awareness Gardiner does all it can to educate locals and tourists alike about properly storing garbage in bear-resistant containers.
The group also splits the costs with local businesses to make sure that garbage bins, fryer grease barrels and other bear temptations are properly secured. That could include purchasing new, bear-resistant containers for garbage, grease and the like.
“I do this work because I love grizzly bears. But I support the decision to remove this particular bear,” Stout said.
To his knowledge the bear hadn’t directly threatened any people. But given the circumstances, an attack on a human is – or would have been – inevitable.
“The worst thing in the world for grizzly conservation is when they hurt a human being,” Stout said.
Ongoing Problems
Gardiner sits at the north entrance into Yellowstone National Park, in one of Montana’s most wildlife-rich areas.
For the most part, residents live peacefully alongside the critters, including grizzly bears, local Cara McGary told Cowboy State Daily.
There is trouble from time to time said McGary, who runs In Our Nature Guiding Services, a Yellowstone tour guide business.
Two falls ago, a female grizzly with two cubs were hanging out at the local school’s ball field and eventually had to be killed by game agents, because of the threat to student and school staff safety.
But the situation with the bear this year is different, she said.
“It’s not our first bear rodeo, but it’s way more intense this year,” McGary said.
The bear’s recurring vandalism and break-ins has spurred more efforts among locals to clean things up and make sure nothing is tempting grizzlies into town.
“The response from locals has been ramping up,” she said.
Proceeds from the town’s annual brew fest, on July 27, will go toward the bear awareness program.
“Money will go toward installing more bear-resistant trash cans and putting up electric fences around beehives,” she said.
House Raid
Tempo works as a tour guide for Yellowstone Wildlife Profiles and also loves having grizzlies and other wildlife nearby.
However, she was deeply troubled when the grizzly tried smashing his way into her house.
She said she was away from home driving on July when she got a text from a neighbor that the bear was trying to break into her house.
She sped home to find a chaotic scene – the bear was crawling through one of her windows and people were standing around “filming it on their phones,” she said.
“I drove my vehicle right at it,” and she said the bear fled.
“He had tried to get in the front door first,” she said, noting the claw marks he left as his calling card.
She and her neighbors have been having trouble with the grizzly all summer. She said she had a frightening close encounter with it early one morning while walking her dog.
“It’s not the first time or the only time he tried to cross the boundaries,” she said.
Even so, she wasn’t happy when she heard that the bear may have been killed.
“It’s a bittersweet thing. I’m happy that it’s over and I’m happy that it’s taken care of. But it’s sad that a beautiful animal had to be put down because we humans couldn’t get our act together,” she said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
