From the AP
Bear and Cubs Caught after Highly Unusual Campsite Mauling Near Yellowstone
A Michigan man is dead and two more were injured in what officials call the most brazen bear attack in or near the park since the 1980s.
By Jule Banville, 7-29-10
The bear who killed a man and injured two others at the Soda Butte campground just outside Yellowstone National Park early Wednesday returned to the site today. She was trapped along with two of her three cubs after she tried to tear down one of the tents she rampaged, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim, who spoke to the Associated Press.
Killed was Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich., who was camping alone, according to the Billings Gazette. The bear, estimated to weigh between 300 and 400 pounds, pulled Kammer out of his tent, dragging him about 25 feet to where his body was found, Aasheim told the AP.
The other victims, Deb Freele of London, Ontario, and an unidentified male, have been hospitalized in Cody, Wyo.
They were attacked around 1:30 a.m., while they slept. According to a story reported by Brett French in the Gazette, the campsites showed no immediate evidence that garbage or food left out attracted the bears.
Fish, Wildlife and Parks Warden Capt. Sam Sheppard described for the AP a highly unusual predatory attack. “She basically targeted the three people and went after them,” Sheppard said. “It wasn’t like an archery hunter who gets between a sow and her cubs and she responds to protect them.”
Officials said the sow will be killed after DNA confirms it’s the same bear. “Everything points to it being the offending bear, but we are not going to do anything until we have DNA samples,” Aasheim said.
State and federal wildlife officials will determine the fate of the cubs. The third, which hadn’t been captured when the AP filed its story, had been heard calling to its mother near where she was captured. It’s unlikely the young bears will be returned to the wild as they’ve likely learned predatory behavior, officials said.
Freele, interviewed from the hospital in Cody, said today she was bitten on her arm and leg before she played dead.
Freele told network morning shows she woke up just before the bear bit her arm.
“I screamed, he bit harder, I screamed harder, he continued to bite,” she said, adding that she could hear her bones breaking. “I told myself, play dead,” she said. “I went totally limp. As soon as I went limp, I could feel his jaws get loose and then he let me go.”
Freele said the bear was silent.
“This, to me, was just an absolutely freaky thing,” she said. “I have to believe that the bear was not normal. It was very quiet, it never made any noise. I felt like it was hunting me.”
Freele suffered severe lacerations and crushed bones from bites on her arms. The male survivor, thought to be a teenager, suffered puncture wounds on his calf.
The bear attack was the most brazen in the Yellowstone area since the 1980s, wildlife officials said.
Officials from the Montana FWP, the National Park Service, the Gallatin National Forest and the Park County Sherriff’s Office organized a meeting tonight at the Cooke City Chamber of Commerce to discuss the attacks.
[End of article]So when was the last time this bear was tranquillized and tagged? What's the history there? After the incident in Wyoming where the biologist was killed, isn't it time to re-examine whether we're the ones making the bears psychotic?
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 7-29-10I don't know what "Brazen" means when it comes to Brown Bears. Bears are both territorial and short tempered, they're quite capable of killing their own species due to territorial instincts. It seems to me that humans tempt fate when they camp out in Bear territory without a dog to sense the bear before it is on top of them and without arms in case self defense is warranted.
Comment By Flyfishdude, 7-29-10Kind of ironic in the wake of Jack Hanna's incident in Glacier, where he stated that he is against allowing firearms in national parks. I'm not saying it would have saved a life, but if if the gentleman that lost his life had a firearm he may still be alive today....
Comment By NWLogger10, 7-30-10"t seems to me that humans tempt fate when they camp out in Bear territory without a dog to sense the bear before it is on top of them and without arms in case self defense is warranted."
but if if the gentleman that lost his life had a firearm he may still be alive today....
This was unmistakably a terrible tragedy, but lots of people on this planet died violent deaths that day. We tempt fate every day when we walk out the front door, drive our cars, take a flight, take a hike, walk downtown Missoula at night......seems the answer is nearly always.."shoulda carried a gun, Bubba"
Right..."everyone carry guns to protect themselves from bees, snakes, bears, humans...."Lock and Load, folks!!... The more of us carrying weapons, the safer our lives will be!
Did I miss the part where they said what kind of bear it was?
Comment By Dewey, 7-30-10Hard to find and fire a gun in time when yer asleep... the handgun vs. bear advocates might be advised to take a pass on this one and not add insult to injury
The woman attacked had pepper spray in the tent , but since the bear had her by the arm and was dragging er, she could not reach it. She had just then woken up and was still groggy.
The bear they trapped, with three yearling cubs, had ZERO history with humans and bear researchers. The IGBC had never seen her before. She was a " virgin to them. DNA results will be back later today to confirm if she's the perp ( likely).
Cooke City is bear heaven even with all the human activity. Dense population of the, black and grizz both . There are probably bears in or near Cooke and Silvergate every night. They used to 'dine' at the landfill transfer station south of town till it was closed ( shades of Yellowstone's old public grizzly feeds at the Old Faithful and Canyon dumps ) , or Cooke City's ad hoc garbage truck parked on main street a few years ago.
What is very important at this point is that IF the FWP-IGBC have trapped the perp bear, they must do a full fine tooth post-mortem to find anything unusual about this bear. The can't just kill her and farm out the cubs and say " problem solved, go on about your business" in the shockwave and shadow of last month's grizzly -human fatality on Kitty Creek 40 miles due south of Cooke City. The agencies are still dancing on hot coals over that one..
Not with August and hunting season looming.
This is a teachable moment. I hope Schwartz and his teams do a full investigation of why this bear had a sudden urge for some man-flesh. Highly irregular. A lot needs to be ruled out.
The Bottom Line is we need to expand grizzly range beyond the artificial Primary Conservation Area that surrounds Yellowstone , expand it in all directions. Pryor Mountains, Big Horn Range, Wind Rivers, Wyoming-Salt River Ranges, central and eastern Idaho , and especially the bear corridor along the Continental Divide northwesterly of Yellowstone. I sincerely doubt that trophy hunting grizzlies will do much to change bear behavior , not when there are elk gutpiles and camps everywhere in Griz Country in September and October , but some hunting needs to be in the mix, too. If for no other reason than to appease the outfitters and gun crowd to get them to pipe down by appeasing them.
A gun would almost certainly not have helped the Cooke City victim. Pepper spray in a tent ? Not a good idea, either. Sometimes there are no remedies . Not when the the Grim Reaper is dealing the cards.
"The more of us carrying weapons, the safer our lives will be!" Depends on the weapon and on the situation. In some situations, yes. In other situations, not true. In any case the individual gets to choose which risky situations he accepts and what precautions he takes.
Comment By jo, 7-30-10Meanwhile, it might be worthwhile for someone to invent a chip-activated warning signal that would scare off approaching animals to a campground. It could be attached to trees at a level above ground that would pick up movement fast. It would automatically turn on at night, and go off after sunrise. Works for dogs in urban areas--why not animals in forest areas? An early warning signal--it should be loud enough to wake up the campers, too. Both the ultrasonic and the audible signals should be on it.
Sure, people are killed daily in auto accidents, etc etc. So what? When people go camping they want to get away from the auto-urban-milieu and enjoy the outdoors. If campgrounds are in a bear area, they need early warning systems.
Hell--we are awakened in the city on nights when the ambulance or the fire company goes screaming down our streets, or near them! I feel sure that most campers would be happy to have some kind of early warn-off system in place in bear areas.
I'd be willing to bet that this bear had found food in a tent in that campground or one nearby. Some knucklehead camper left food or garbage previously and trained this bear. Someone else became the victim of this. Warnings are no good. There should be fines for campers that leave food available to wildlife, especially in front country campgrounds.
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 7-31-10Just before the Bear kills you, the Government won't be there to protect you. The same applies to other life and death situations. When you spend time in territory of large, short tempered, powerful, territorial, omnivores your survival may depend on your ability to act in your own defense. Its up to the individual to protect himself. The government won't be there to watch you die.
Comment By jo, 7-31-10"There should be fines for campers that leave food available to wildlife, especially in front country campgrounds."
Your idea about a food-trained bear makes sense.
But how would anyone know who left the food unless some forest official came on them before they took off for the next stop.
Maybe wolves have consumed so much of the grizzly prey base as to upset the calorie cart, and a sow with three one year olds to feed has to be aggressive to be a good mother. Too much competition for food. Maybe the elk reproduction is now so low that the spring protein source of elk calves has dried up and good mother bear has to find other sources of protein to raise her brood. Maybe wolf competition with the bears is now tough enough that wolves in large enough packs are running grizz of its kills. Just maybe the wolf faeries have brought about the unintended consequence of bringing great harm to the habitat and food sources of grizzlies. Add the nursery imported white pine blister rust now decimating white bark pines and removing the pine nut from the grizz diet, a great loss of valuable fat and protein, life is hard for a caring mother grizzly and she has to be aggressive and intense in her quest to feed her kids.
First, the Park shut down the dumps and changed how and where grizzly bears ate and socialized in the Park. Now the introduction of wolves has greatly decimated the elk herds. Bears hibernate, and came out in spring to eat winter kill elk. Now the wolves eat them before they can even die. There is little winter kill left for a grizz in spring. And they were not killing all winter long like a wolf pack. We do have to think that wolf reintroduction has changed things, and perhaps not for the better for the great bears. Unintended consequences.
Pepper spray is faster than a gun, and has more deterrence. Maybe two pepper spray cans is better than one, and much better than a gun. The old ocean fish boat adage: a pair and a spare.
Then again, camping in a bear feeding area is fraught with bad outcomes, really. Both for bears and for people. I guess you post signs, and then just tell people that they are prey and should be prepared to be bitten and possibly killed. If that were not possible, then really how much of a wilderness experience are you having?? Walk the walk, people. You ask for the critters to be there, no matter what, and you really don't have any reason to complain when a bear consumes your liver, not that you would even notice at that point. And liver is full of fat and a good replacement for the missing elk calves, winter kill and marmots to dig.
Apex predators like Bears and Wolves have no instinctive fear of humans unless they are hunted or harassed by humans. In areas where they are hunted or harassed by humans both Bears and Wolves generally try to avoid humans.
Comment By bearbait, 8-02-10I read in a local newspaper this noon that the zoo bear keepers noted that the cubs from the aggressive mankiller female were emaciated and hungry, and noted they were about 80 lbs and should have been up to 130 lbs at their age. The AP writer went on to say that hunger might have driven the female to her aggressive behavior. Duh!
I will stand by my opinion that wolf introduction has upset the Grizzly apple cart and buffet table, and extraordinary situations have produced extraordinary needs in female bears trying their best to raise cubs. Probably the best thing to do is close the Jellystone campgrounds and let the animals sort things out among themselves. Visit but don't stay. Or at the least, have to show proof of possession of the magnum bear spray before you can leave the car or truck, or climb off your bike.
Omnivores that they are, bears are into feeding hard and long when not hibernating, in order to store up enough fat to take them through the winter. The retained fat at winter's end, and the immediate food supply at hibernation's end is what grows cubs. And then that is a two or three year project. Feeding something that weighs thirty pounds is much easier than feeding something that weighs 90 lbs, or in this case, the bear was not able to feed her cubs enough and they were candidates for a "Feed the Cubs" campaign.
The way educated humans in this country act and think is wrong, way too much of the time. I heard a PBS ditty on health care in Haiti. The issue is that Haiti had a for profit health care system, which is going broke due to free medical care from NGOs, who will leave at some point in time. Left behind will be a broke Haitian health care system that will not be able to come close to staying vital and in existence, let alone serve the country in a needed manner. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as the female grizzly has shown us. We are down a reproducing female grizz who was a tireless worker in caring for her kids. The successful breeder. And we lost the two female cubs to a zoo. So essentially we are down three hen grizzlys, and it is because we, humanity, felt compelled to end her life, and the reproductive chain of her offspring who were being well taught on how to survive. Even with a poor outlook for food. We do have to remember this bear didn't bite and kill people in THEIR homes. She was not the trespasser. She was dominant in her territory, or as dominant as she was able to be, and tourists are no match for a hungry bear. If the ESA is about bear conservation, than on public lands, people will have to forgo the freedom to park their butts under the stars at night. The bears should have the right of way. They were NOT responsible for the reintroduction of wolves. Irresponsible government brought in alien wolves which have taken over the food supply. And the park police cannot profile which bears will hurt you. The wolves won. The bears are losing. And it is all due to human intervention in what is supposed to be a World Wildlife Environmental Hubba Hubba natural deal. The BS story continues. The public is again duped.
So if you see that there is down trend in grizzly numbers, you do have to remember that the demographics of life forms only include the numbers of the gender that bears young. Male births do not count. Male deaths do not count. It is all about how many females are alive and fertile, and capable of raising a cub to maturity. We just lost three females in an ESA species. Now is the time to again blame ranchers, outfitters, anyone but the public. I will be the exception to that idea: I will blame the anthropomorphic public. I will blame those who think that they can have wild animals of the apex predator variety and mingle with them without chance of harm. The bleeding heart public killed that bear, and really should have euthanized the three cubs as well. That decision NOT to euthanize them does nothing to advance grizzly bear recovery. All that has happened there is the public is now going to pay to feed them for 20 to 30 years, clean their cages, jail cells, and study them in an unnatural environment. In our usual insanity, we now have assumed an unfunded liability for a third of a century. You get enough of those, and someday there is no money left......like today...right now...This is the second man killer grizzly of the year. One is an anomaly. Two is the beginnings of a pattern. Bow season is soon. And hibernation isn't until November or December. There is a lot of time to establish a pattern, or not.
Bearbait, you're downright sentimental about bears for a guy whose name suggests that you are eaten by the Bears on a regular basis. "Alien Wolves"!? Come on.
Comment By bearbait, 8-02-10Mickey: There is nothing benign about a sow grizzly. The Oregon Senator Wyden was once described in a book about Congress: "Getting between Congressman Wyden and a television camera is more dangerous than getting between a sow grizzly and her cubs."
Wyden now has the geriatric red dyed Strom Thurmond hair and a comb over, and is botoxed like Pelosi. The fountain of youth eludes him, but plastic surgery has not. He has a newer wife much younger, some new kids, and he represents Oregon and she and the kids live in NYC where she manages The Strand, the premier used book store of The City. Oregon has a carpetbagger senator. Either to his wife and family or to Oregon. 3300 miles separate his constituency and his new wife and kids. I guess like Panama or Liberia, Oregon's flag is a flag of convenience. The Blue background is fitting for our blue state foibles.
The bear is ESA listed and is supposed to garner a level of protection above that of humans. I have lived under the boot heel of the Clinton NW Forest Plan since its inception. Last week, a thinning timber sale was stopped because a pair of spotted owls moved into the timber sale active area to feed on rodents made more available by tree removal. People were regulated to "save" the owls. As per US gummint regulators. But if a bear acts like the apex predator it is, in its special, set aside, protected habitat, and chews on people the US Gummint kills the bear and sends the cubs to prison for life. Three breeders lost in that deal. A grizz takes up a lot more habitat area than a spotted owl. The grizzly sow got short shrift by the Regulators. Stupid people can include those who believe USPS signs and set aside camping areas are safe from bear predation. The bear was being a bear. All the wolf faeries want the wolf to be a wolf, as long as it is eating other people's livestock and not their Uncle Mortie. The bear is not getting the same protection as the ALIEN (as in ones that migrated to Jellystone by airmail from Canada) wolves. That is wrong. And the bear is not getting the protection that Northern Spotted Owls have received. My observation. And owls won't try to eat you. Au contraire. The owls, or all too many of them, have become habituated to "owl hooters" who are contract owl locators. They hoot up owls, and try to call them in. A mouse on a string is the bait. Eureka!!! answer the call, and there is food at the site. A picnic. I would not be surprised if the owls that moved into the thinning timber sale were owls who know the sound of a pickup door closing and a chain saw are certain indication of easy food. All sorts of critters fall out of trees that are felled. Sort of like finding food at a camp ground. The association of humans and food, or now, humans as food, is not a new deal. So keep the humans out, just like those very same humans want to send loggers home. Good for the goose, and good for the gander.
So you've swung full circle from a logger to an Environmental Nut Case who wants to keep human primates out of Wilderness Areas and National Parks?
Comment By bearbait, 8-02-10Mickey: Loggers and concern about critters are not mutually exclusive. I am mean, though. I would vote in a heartbeat to keep the public out of ESA creature or plant habitat. Just being there impacts the critters. The Hanford Reserve elk studies by McCorkadale and Sergeant of U of Idaho, long ago, determined that the elk security distance was over 1000 feet from the high fence that surrounds the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The elk would mosey to about that distance from the roads, people, etc., and then move into the heart of the reserve, which is about 56,000 acres of "shrub steppe, with 95% of the shrub vegetation fire removed." Highest elk reproduction rates recorded in the wild. Not one tree. One perennial spring. Hotter than hell in summer (over 115 f) and colder than who'd ever know in winter (-20f or more). They feed at night in the heat, and then let the ground coolness remove the heat from their bellies by lying down a goodly part of the day. People just being there is not natural and impacts the animals in an unnatural way. If doing nothing in the forest is the salvation of earth, then we certainly ought not to be where the wild critters are supposed to be by law and government ownership of land. Of course, I know that in those places with the public removed, soon there would be USFS dachas and cabins for "administrative use only." That has already happened in the Hells Canyon Reserve on the Salmon and Snake Rivers. I imagine it is like that most every where. The favored class, the gummint employee, has special places just for them. So, yes anyway. Kick the people out and have a catholic approach just like there is anywhere else. There is a 1000 foot no trespass zone off every ocean rock, isle, sea stack, reef, off the Oregon coast. All are USFWS refuges and the public cannot even approach them, let alone step foot on one. The largest colony of murres on the West Coast has become the favored hunting ground of several pairs of bald eagles, and the constant taking of young birds and the disruption as the adults fly away, has opened up the rocks to egg exploitation by gulls, crows, and ravens, and we have had two years prior to this one with no, zero, nada, common murre recruitment. The sky wolves got them all or ran the breeders off the nest and the eggs were lost or the helpless chicks were killed or starved. It appears that the birds are adjusting by leaving for some other rocks, some other place, where there are not marauding eagles, and their corvid camp followers. Security protects critters. Humans are a threat to security. So to have grizzly bears, we need to keep people away from their habitat in reserves for them like National Parks. Ride in a coach and sleep in a hotel. Let the bears have their habitat to themselves. Learn to cross country ski and use the wildlands in winter when the bears hibernate. I am a reasonable man. That is a reasonable solution. At the least, it is more inclusive and servant to the local economy than the Clinton NW Forest Plan ever was or has been or will be. Invented by lawyers, for lawyers, and feeding lawyers every day. If you want to kill and eat a lawyer, judge shop the US District Courts. You find prime lawyer habitat and EAJA feeders a plenty. The television news tonight showed a sand shark right at the littoral. Inches more and it would be a beach shark. My first thought was that a New York lawyer had gone swimming and the sharks were trying to escape. But a skinny sow with three skinny cubs, all of them hungry, in a Federal wildlife and landscape reserve, should not have to die or be imprisoned for life for being what they are. They were home, and the human victims were not. Yellowstone is either a reserve for nature, or it is a contrived tourist destination. Hard to be both. Are they shooting the bison that give the insane a Pamplona ride in the sky? Bison kill people all the time. They only get shot when they are eating cult food on the old Forbes ranch. That is probably justifiable. Bears are neither right nor wrong. Only people can make that type of decision. Putting the bear in harm's way by putting yourself in harm's way is a rational decision by a human. Bears make no rational decisions. Harvard won't admit them, yet. And Yale Divinity School won't, either. So, I bang my gavel down and declare for the bear. Next time we euthanize the human who gets in trouble with a bear. Take that one out of the gene pool. Lose another Blue State voter. damn...
Comment By Todd, 8-03-10I think the big problem is single species management and money for that due to research grants and environmental lawsuits. We desperately need folks who are looking at the whole picture, not jsut the money they can make from one species concentration.
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 8-03-10Maybe you're getting cabin fever, Bearbait. Maybe you need to get out, run around woods naked for awhile then jump in your favorite, secret, spring fed, crystal clear, forest pool and stay there till you start to go numb.
Comment By The Fan, 8-12-10A black bear was killed on property today 8/11/10 at around 4:30pm. The bear
was shot with a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with lead bags......... This black
bear was seen by a member and that member requested that it be removed from
the area. So Security was requested to haze the bear from the PAINT BALL
area (which is about 1/2 mile from any activity or people. So Security
arrived on scene with his gun ( he was a West Yellowstone officer at
onetime), he has a degree in wildlife mang. He shot the black bear with a
12 gauge slug instead of non
lethal bullets. The bear runs off and goes down. Long story short...FWP was
called and they arrived at the club just in time to load the dead bear up
and remove it. Because the 12 gauge slug that was put in the gun and not the
non lethal bullets the bear was killed.
The bear was nowhere near any people. It is a fact that bears like the
spent paint balls, so tell me YC Security what gives you the right to kill
bears out of season and without a tag. And don't tell me the bear was
causing problems with the YC camp.
The Fan