Grand Teton National Park black bear attacks woman

Authorities try to trap the bear.

Posted 7/9/98

An Idaho Falls, Idaho woman, Mourn Maughan, was bitten by a black bear this week in Grand Teton National Park.

The cinammon-colored bear with unusual white claws gave 22-year-old Ms. Maughan a injury to her head after she encountered the bear as she rounded a corner on the trail near String Lake.  Maughan said she was making noise to warn wildlife, but the bear apparently didn't hear it.  She said it was 40 to 50 feet away when the bear rose on its hind legs.

Maughan apparently did everything right -- she backed away slowly and averted her gaze -- but the bear approached her. She rolled up in the fetal position.  The bear sniffed and then bit her on the head.  Maughan then rolled off the lakeside trail and down into the lake. She starting swimming, but the bear came after her.  Before the bear reached her, it was scared away by the shouts of another hiker.

According to the Associated Press, Grand Teton National Park officials are using two oversized barrel traps baited with meat in an effort to catch the bear.  This may be the same bear that attacked and bit two hikers near Jackson Lake in early June.  In that attack, the bear had been pursued by picture-taking tourists.  As the bear fled, it encountered the hikers.

Although grizzly bears inhabit an increasing portion of Grand Teton National Park, most of past injuries to tourists have been from black bears.
 

Potato-chip weilding tourist prompts aversive conditioning for three Yellowstone Grizzly Bears-

In another bear story, a man was recently discovered feeding a grizzly and her two cubs near the east entrance of Yellowstone Park, an illegal and extremely stupid, selfish act.  Park officials were not able to find the offender who had been reported by a park employee.  Because just one taste of food like this can make a grizzly a permanent danger to humans, Park officials responded by shooting the bears with rubber bullets with the hope that they would come to associate humans with pain, not tasty handouts.

The grizzlies have since moved away from the road.

Park spokesperson Cheryl Matthews said, "We've said over and over again that a fed bear is a dead bear."