JACKSON, Wyo. — Visitors to Town Square on Friday night got the wildlife sighting of a lifetime when a young black bear appeared in the busiest part of town.
Videos of the bear have been circulating widely on social media platforms. Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) Large Carnivore Biologist Mike Boyce told Buckrail that the female bear appeared to be about 2 years old and in good health. Boyce said it appeared to be the same bear that had been seen earlier Friday morning in Miller Park; based on its pace then, WGFD assumed the bear was just passing through. From Boyce’s perspective, the bear found itself in a busy part of town and thought it had found an escape route when it saw the treetops of the square.
The bear climbed one of the large spruce trees, where it remained for about an hour. Jackson Police Department was first on the scene, helping keep humans a safe distance from the treed bear, per Boyce. WGFD staff arrived next.
“We considered attempting to capture it in that tree but determined it would be unsafe because the tree was so big,” Boyce said. “We let the bear come down and kind of corralled it over to the northeastern corner of the square. It took off and ran a couple of blocks.”
The bear then climbed up a smaller tree, which allowed WGFD to safely immobilize and capture it. Saturday morning, the bear was relocated to national forest land near Hoback, Boyce said.
Boyce noted that the bear didn’t have any prior history of conflict, and that WGFD had not received any reports of a bear getting into trash. The bear appeared to him to be in good physical condition.
“Sometimes they do kind of erratic things,” Boyce said. “It’s hard to predict. It’s the thing we all talk about as kind of the worst case scenario, since it’s so busy with people and vehicles.”
The encounter serves as a reminder to give wildlife plenty of space, especially predator animals like bears.
“It is not safe to approach them,” Boyce said. “Give them room to move. Don’t block their path of travel if they do want to leave. [The bear] was trying to leave Town Square and got blocked by people trying to take pictures.”
