Sylvia Borgonovo and her husband, David, were trying to enjoy some quiet fishing on the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park when suddenly, somebody yelled “grizzly!” and tourists started to stampede.
She shouted to them that panicking and running was not the thing to do if a grizzly is approaching, but they wouldn’t listen.
Then the critter appeared: It wasn’t a grizzly, but a young black bear that Borgonovo said was the most unusual thing she’d ever seen in Yellowstone.
With light-colored — almost white — shaggy fur and facial markings described as being “like a racoon,” the confused bear looked like it could have come from the imagination of the late Jim Henson, one of the original designers of the Muppets.
“Somebody also said it looked like ‘ALF,’” Borgonovo told Cowboy State Daily, referencing the 1980s television sitcom about a furry space alien who takes up residence with a suburban family.
Tried To Calm Tourists Down
The Borgonovos are from Missoula, Montana, but they rent an apartment in West Yellowstone each year from May to October, and they spend as much time as they can outside in Yellowstone country.
They’ve seen many black bears and grizzlies over the years, and they know how to behave around bears. (Not running and screaming, for starters.)
After a day of exploring the park on July 14, they were driving back to their place in West Yellowstone when they decided to pull over next to the Madison River and get some fishing in.
Everything was quiet and peaceful at first. There was a group of about 15 tourists down the riverbank from them, and everybody seemed to be having a good time.
Then the chaos started.
“I turned to my right and put my pole down to go see what was going on. And my husband just kept fishing, of course,” she said.
The tranquility was replaced by terror.
“It was something out of a horror movie, everybody was running and screaming,” Borgonovo said.
She tried telling the tourists to calm down and just back slowly away from the bear.
It was frustrating, because running like that “is about the dumbest thing you can do,” she said.
“You’re trying to tell them, and they won’t listen to you because you don’t have a badge,” Borgonovo said. “You know how it is, people behaving badly.”
To make matters even worse, “none of them even had any bear spray with them,” she said.
That’s No Grizzly
Apparently, somebody had first spotted the bear on the opposite riverbank. When it started swimming across the river toward the tourists, people began bolting and fleeing toward their vehicles.
The bear came up the bank, perhaps 100 feet from the frightened crowd.
Borgonovo immediately recognized it as a black bear, and a young one at that, perhaps a yearling.
“People thought it was a grizzly,” she said. “Come on. It had long ears, a long nose, no dished face, no hump.”
Despite its unusual appearance, the bear looked to be in good shape and not suffering from any weird mutations.
“The bear looked healthy, young, curious … and scared,” Borgonovo said.
Natural Variations
She surmised that as a young animal, perhaps out exploring for the first time away from its mother, the bear swam across the river to get a closer look at the humans.
But when the humans went bonkers, it was probably just as frightened as they were, she said.
Once everybody was settled into their vehicles and safe from the terrifying and terrified bear, Borgonovo snapped a picture of it through a telephoto lens.
After seeing the photo, Wyoming Game and Fish Large Carnivore Specialist Dan Thompson said the bear’s appearance is just a product of nature and not the result of some strange condition.
Black bears come in a wide variety of shades, he told Cowboy State Daily.
“We see a great deal of variation in black bear pelage in Wyoming, and especially during the summer when they are shedding, they can look somewhat shaggy, mottled or unkempt as summer coats replace winter coats,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
