A hunter who was headed out to scout for black bears near Cody last weekend said he had made it hardly a half-mile into the Shoshone National Forest when a female grizzly and two cubs walked right up to his bright lime-green Jeep without a care.
Olin Machen of Cody got video of the encounter. He said it serves as proof of what outdoor recreationalists have been saying for years — grizzlies have gotten thick in the country around Cody, and they seem to have no fear of humans.
“It’s sketchy. It really is,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Black Bear Hunters Dodging Grizzlies
Most people associate hunting with the autumn season, but Wyoming also has spring hunting seasons for turkeys and black bears.
In areas where black bear and grizzly habitat overlap, such the Absaroka mountain range front near Cody, spring-season black bear hunters say they increasingly must be on high alert for grizzlies.
It’s not uncommon for hunters to see more grizzlies than black bears, Machen said.
“Between me and the other guys I hunt with out there, we average about 8 to 12 grizzlies for every black bear we see,” he said.
Spot-And-Stalk Bear Hunting
Two common methods of black bear hunting in Wyoming are baiting and spot-and-stalk.
Baiting involves setting out barrels full of tempting treats to draw bears in, while hunters wait in nearby blinds or tree stands, sometimes for hours on end.
Spot-and-stalk involves spotting bears from a distance though binoculars or spotting scopes. If a desirable bear is spotted, the hunters then must figure out how to stalk within range for a clear rife or bow shot.
Manchen also sometimes hunts black bears in the Bighorn Mountains and uses the baiting technique there.
But closer to home on the Absaroka front, it’s all spot-and-stalk hunting, he said.
“There’s no baiting in that area because of all the grizzlies,” he said.
‘She’d Had Flipped Out’
He was headed out Saturday to scout for black bears, but said he had only just started his drive in along a Forest Service road when the three grizzlies came ambling up the road.
He stopped his Jeep to watch and started taking a video with his cellphone. It shows the bears walking right up to the vehicle, and then past it, almost as if it wasn’t even there.
Though one of the cubs initially started to go around the driver’s side, all three bears went around the passenger side.
The windows on his Jeep aren’t tented, so Machen thinks the bears had a clear view of him.
He expected at least one of them to perhaps make a swipe at the Jeep. He sat quietly, and the grizzlies passed by without incident.
“If I had rolled my window down and said something she’d have flipped out,” he said of the mother grizzly.
Not So Much A Matter Of ‘Bears Pushing Out’
Inside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, there has been plenty of highly visible bear activity this spring. Social media sites have been plastered with grizzly photos and videos, posted by bear-watchers.
There’s a longstanding perception that grizzly population growth inside the parks has been pushing more and more bears into the adjacent habitat, such as the Absaroka front/Shoshone National Forest.
That could be a misconception, Wyoming Game and Fish large carnivore specialist Dan Thompson told Cowboy State Daily.
“It's not so much ‘pushing bears out’ (of the national parks) as it is range expansion due to population increase, which results in increasing density and distribution,” he said.
“Bears had filled and expanded beyond the recovery zone in the late 1990s and then continued to re-occupy historic suitable habitats through the early 2000s, which included expanding beyond suitable habitats, resulting in those conflicts we see in more agricultural residential areas where we aren't promoting bear occupancy,” Thompson said.
“There's still a ton of bears in the core and now we're seeing high densities of bears throughout suitable habitat, and beyond in the GYE (Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem),” he added.
‘I Won’t Hunt That Country By Myself’
Machen said he hasn’t been charged by grizzlies yet, but there are so many of them in the areas where he hunts black bears, the possibility of a mauling has become a real concern.
There’s an ongoing debate over whether grizzlies should be delisted, and perhaps even hunted in Wyoming.
Some argue that despite their growing numbers, grizzlies still lack the vast expanses of interconnected habitat that they need for healthy genetic exchange between various subpopulations in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
But like many in Wyoming, Machen said he favors delisting.
The number and boldness of grizzlies on public land in northwest Wyoming has become a genuine safety concern for hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts, he said.
“Inside the national parks and outside the parks, the bears are not the same,” he said, because grizzlies outside the parks seem to be more aggressive.
“I won’t hunt that country by myself. And I actually like to hunt solo, and I do in the Bighorn Mountains all the time. But I won’t hunt in that country near Cody by myself,” he said.
“I’ve got family that requires my income. I can’t afford to get jacked up” by a grizzly mauling, Machen added.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
