As June draws to a close, it has been a lively year for human-bear conflicts, with several people getting attacked, one fatally, and bears being killed, or captured and relocated.
Some observers worry it’s going to get worse if dry conditions push more bears looking for food toward settled areas.
Recently, a woman and her dog were approached and circled by a grizzly bear near Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. The woman and dog escaped without harm, Rocky Mountain Outlook reported.
Similarly, in near Golden, Colorado on June 21, a black bear scratched a woman’s leg, and then followed the woman for about 30 minutes, despite her shouting and throwing rocks and sticks.
“It just seems to be that left, right and center, things are going on,” said Kim Titchener, president of Bear Safety and More, told Cowboy State Daily.
However, she noted that “20 or 30 years ago, we didn’t have phones with cameras.”
Now sketchy bear encounters are frequently caught on video, such as the woman’s run-in with the grizzly in Alberta, Titchener said.
And the videos blow up on social media, which can create an out-sized perception of problems with bears compared to the past, she added.
‘Are There Going To Be Berries?’
Despite recent rainstorms, including in Alberta where Titchener lives, it’s been a dry year overall in many places.
That’s led to questions over how bears’ natural food sources are being affected. And how that, in turn, might drive more conflicts, she said.
“Are there going to be berries (this year)?” she asked.
Regarding the grizzly moving in on the woman and her dog in Alberta, the consensus seems to be that the bear showed great interest in the dog, Titchener said.
In a video the woman took of the encounter, she repeatedly and sternly shouts at the bear, which gets just a few feet a way a couple times but never attacks the dog.
“It (the bear) was absolutely a threat to her and the dog,” Titchener said.
Some have questioned why the woman didn’t carry bear spray.
Spray is highly recommended in bear country, and Titchener said that two her knowledge, the woman has experience living and working around bears.
Apparently that day, “she was just taking her dog for a quick walk” and didn’t think to take her bear spray, Titchener said.
The incident highlights the need to never take for granted when a bear might appear, and being prepared with a defense mechanism, she said.
Ruckus In Grand Teton
Grant Teton National Park spokeswoman Emily Davis said the uptick in human-bear conflicts in Grand Teton seems to be about a month ahead of schedule this year.
A 3-year-old female black bear was killed by wildlife agents on June 15 because it had been getting human-sourced “food rewards” in the Jenny Lake area, Davis said.
“I’m not sure that anyone was necessarily feeding it” directly, Davis said.
Instead, the bear might have gotten food from unattended backpacks, coolers and the like, Davis said.
The black bear “was approaching people too closely,” so the decision was made to euthanize it, she said.
Heather Reich, a biologist and bear conflict management expert, told Cowboy State Daily that bear activity and conflicts are up across the West, probably because of an abnormally warm winter.
She and her husband, Derek, have three Karelian bear dogs, a breed originally from Finland that specializes in harassing and chasing bears away.
In 2023, the Reichs founded Bear-ier Solutions, based in Nevada.
They were recently called to Grand Teton to drive a young grizzly named Miracle away from the crowded Colter Bay area.
“The dogs gave it a good chase, and I think that was a very novel experience for that little kid (Miracle), Heather said.
However, that still wasn’t enough to convince Miracle to leave the area for good.
Miracle was captured by wildlife agents Thursday and relocated to a remote site in the park, the first such relocation in Grand Teton since 2021.
Educating People Prevents Trouble
From the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s perspective, it’s essentially been a normal year, large carnivore specialist Dan Thompson told Cowboy State Daily.
“I feel like things have been steadily busy with bears and conflicts, but nothing necessarily out of the ordinary,” he said.
“There were some higher-profile situations in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks that garner a great deal of media attention but aren't emblematic of conflict potential everywhere,” Thompson said.
Game and Fish works to prevent conflict through education, he said.
“The current dry state of the state is not lost on us, and what it may mean as the summer progresses for conflict potential between bears – black and grizzly – and people, he said.
“But we are prepared to deal with conflicts as necessary and continue our outreach and education across the state to inform the public on ways to reduce the potential for conflict with bears and other wildlife,” Thompson added.
Attacks In Wyoming, Montana, Canada
Nobody has been mauled in Grand Teton this year. In May, there were grizzly attacks in Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park in Montana.
Glacier reported its first fatal bear attack since 1998 when the body of Florida resident Anthony Pollio, 33, was found May 6 two days after he was reported missing.
His body was found about 50 feet from the trail he’d apparently been hiking.
On the same day Pollio went missing, two brothers were severely hurt when they were attacked by a female grizzly with cubs near Old Faithful in Yellowstone.
A California man, Daniel Crago, said he was dragged 20-30 feet by a grizzly before it finally let him go in an attack he sustained late last month in Glacier.
And on May 26, a man running on a trail in British Columbia was attacked by a female black bear with two cubs.
Garbage Raids In Durango
It’s been tough keeping up with bear incidents in Durango, Colorado, and surrounding La Plata County, local resident Bryan Peterson told Cowboy State Daily.
Because of drought, “bears at lower altitudes don’t have anything to eat,” said Peterson, the director of Bear Smart Durango.
“It’s too early for their fall foods to be impacted. I don’t know how great acorn production and berry production is going to be in August,” he said. “Unless we get a ton of rain, July is gong to be super interesting, and this fall could be nuts.”
Many of the conflicts are driven by bears raiding garbage cans and dumpsters, Peterson said.
There’s been a steady increase of bear conflict reports in Durango and the county over the past five years.
As of June 28, there are 77 reports, he said, compared to 35 on the same date in 2025, 25 in 2024, 40 in 2023, 53 in 2022 and 49 in 2021.
Of the 77 reports, 39 have involved bears getting into trash, Peterson said.
“Those have resulted in two citations and $100 in fines,” he said.
Peterson said that frustrates him because as he sees it authorities should be cracking down on people who leave garbage accessible to bears.
A fatal black bear mauling took place in the area in 2021, he added.
“A woman was out walking her dogs, and what happened (during the attack) nobody knows,” he said.
The attack was thought to involve a female bear with cubs, he said.
“At all the local retail stores, after that incident, their sales of bear spray skyrocketed,” Peterson said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
