YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — On Wednesday, Yellowstone National Park (YNP) staff trapped and killed a grizzly bear that had become food-conditioned, according to a Thursday announcement by the park.
Between April 3 and May 13, the 11-year-old male grizz, weighing an estimated 400 pounds, had “overturned several large, bear-resistant dumpsters and gained access to human food and trash near Old Faithful, the Nez Perce Picnic Area and the Midway Geyser Basin parking lot,” YNP said via press release.
“In addition to developing a strategy to flip over 800-pound dumpsters, the bear also uprooted smaller bear-resistant trash cans from their concrete bases to gain access to human food and garbage,” YNP’s statement reads. “As a result, the bear became increasingly food-conditioned and posed a risk to public safety in one of the busiest areas of the park. The decision to kill the bear was made to ensure public safety and reduce the chances of other bears becoming habituated to human food.”
YNP noted that the last grizzly to be killed in a management action in the park died in September 2017, when a bear was damaging tents and finding human food in Heart Lake’s backcountry campsites.
“It’s unfortunate that this bear began regularly seeking out garbage and was able to defeat the park’s bear-resistant infrastructure,” Yellowstone Bear Management Biologist Kerry Gunther said in a statement. “We go to great lengths to protect bears and prevent them from becoming conditioned to human food. But occasionally, a bear outsmarts us or overcomes our defenses. When that happens, we sometimes have to remove the bear from the population to protect visitors and property.”
YNP reminds visitors that using the park’s provided bear-resistant food storage lockers and waste receptacles is crucial to ensuring human and bear safety. Read the park’s bear management plan for more information.
