This is how various news reports described the last last grizzly death of the year at the top of Mol Heron Creek, just northwest of Yellowstone Park. It was also the only human injuries of the year. It was another high mortality year for grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
The injured guide, Joe Heimer, suffered bites on his legs. His client, Sonya Crowley suffered more extensive injuries--bites to her head and face. The female bear, who was with her two yearling cubs, was one of the oldest and most productive female grizzlies in the ecosystem -- 23 years old with five previous litters. The bear had no past record of aggressiveness, but twenty yards is far inside the attack zone of a grizzly with cubs.
The one-year survival rate of orphaned grizzly yearlings is somewhat over 50%.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition urges all hunters to carry pepper spray in addition to firearms. The human injury rate after spraying a bear is much lower than the injury rate after shooting a charging bear. About 90 per cent of grizzly charges are "bluff" charges -- the bear will run close by the person or knock the person down without other injuries. It is not known whether the use of pepper spray would have worked in the Mol Heron Creek attack.
Sad grizzly record of the past three years
Although fewer grizzlies died in 1996, than in 1995, the grizzly mortality
and human injury rate has been high for three years in a row. This follows
a period of much improved grizzly mortality. Many of the grizzly deaths
and most of the human injuries have occurred outside of Yellowstone National
Park.
Some bear researchers and the state Fish and Game departments, attribute the growing number of grizzly deaths and grizzly movement to areas outside of Yellowstone park to a growing grizzly population. Other researchers attribute the deaths to the bad luck of successive poor grizzly food seasons in 1994 and 1995. Lack of food caused the bears to range more widely into areas where human conflict had a higher probability.
In general, food production for grizzlies in the GYE was good this year. A good crop of whitebark pine nuts and army cutworm moths kept many bears in high altitude places, far from towns, roads, and people.
A summary of 1996 grizzly mortality
SUMMARY 1996, 14 dead bears in the GYE. 10 human-caused. 5 were human-caused
female deaths. Total deaths may be greater than 14 due to uncertainty as
to whether the total of four orphaned cubs will survive.
COMPARISON 1995, 17 dead bears human-caused. Number of natural unknown.
COMPARISON 1994, 10 dead bears human-caused. Number of natural unknown.
COMPARISON 1993, 3 dead bears human-caused. Number of natural unknown.
COMPARISON 1992, 4 dead bears human-caused.
COMPARISON 1991, 0 dead bears human-caused.
NATURAL DEATHS
1. Male, yearling, March 25th, North Fork of the Shoshone River. The
yearling drowned crossing the North Fork of the Shoshone river. This river
is to the east of Yellowstone Park.
2. Male, May 18th, Swan Lake Flats in the northern part of Yellowstone NP. A cub-of-the-year (COY) was found next to the road. The autopsy showed the cub died of natural causes. It suffered from malnutrition. It was emaciated and its muscles were in a state of atrophy. It may have had a developmental defect.
3. Sex? COY, July, Wildcat Peak, Bridger Teton National Forest on the western side of the Teton Wilderness. The cub died of unknown causes.
4. Female no. 241, July 12th, on Sepulcher Mountain, Gallatin Range inside Yellowstone NP. Number 241 was a radio-collared sub-adult who was orphaned as a COY in the South Fork of the Shoshone in July of 1994 (she was found near highway tunnels upstream of Cody, Wyoming near Buffalo Bill Reservoir). This bear apparently never learned autumn foods from her mother and was found again in the fall of 1995, weak and malnutritioned. The bear was penned by the National Park Service, but she recovered so nicely in the enclosure that she broke out of her pen and denned naturally. This year she was found dead with severely broken bones. It is believed she was either hit by a car and walked to Sepulcher Mountain and died, or she was killed by another bear.
5. Sex ? Its bones were found, September 30th, near Old Faithful. There is uncertainty whether this bear died this year or last. It was a very old bear as determined by the condition of its teeth. Died of old age?
HUMAN-CAUSED MORTALITIES
6. Female COY, June 18th, Highway at Lewis Falls in Yellowstone NP.
This cub was hit by a car and found crushed on the center line.
7. Male no. 209, August 3rd, Northeast portion of Grand Teton NP. This bear was euthanized after it was taken out of a Grand Teton NP cattle allotment. It had a history of killing cow calves. The death was a controversial action, in part because many people think that grizzly bears are supposed to have priority over cows in the two national parks and adjacent national forest "situation one" grizzly bear management areas.
8. Male no. 223, August 15th, Number 233 was removed from Boulder River Drainage north of Yellowstone NP. It was a 3-year old male. It originally got into trouble in 1994 near West Yellowstone. It was relocated and stayed out of trouble until this year. This bear raided barns and sheds, and even entered an occupied house on the Allen K Ranch near Grand Teton NP. It apparently ran out when it saw the people. It was relocated and given another chance. It was finally dispatched by the Montana Department of Fish and Game in the Boulder River drainage.
9. Female no. 216, August 23rd, Gravelly Range. Beaverhead National Forest, a considerable distance west of Yellowstone National Park. This was a mistake, a fiasco according to some. The Montana Fish and Game warden moved a problem "black bear" from the Diamond J Ranch east of Ennis, Montana for release in the Gravellys to the ranch's southwest. Upon release the bear charged the game officer and he shot it. Only then did the officer realize it was not a black bear, but a grizzly.
10. Subadult male, August 24th, Shot near near Dubois, Wyoming, a considerable distance to the SE of Yellowstone Park. A black bear hunter shot this grizzly by mistake and turned himself in.
11. Subadult Male, euthanized August 30th. This was one of two 1 1/2 year old male cubs captured near Big Sky Resort, Montana on Wednesday, August 28th. They couldn't find a zoo for this "more aggressive" yearling. The other was relocated inside the Yellowstone. These two yearlings may have been the cubs of female #216, (see mortality no. 9 above).
12. Female with cubs, shot September 23rd, north of Dubois, Wyoming, deep inside the Teton Wilderness on the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Two hunters were apparently watching elk by a creek on the Buffalo Plateau about 25 miles north of Brooks Lake, near Marsden Pass. The bear attacked one of them from behind. After three charges, the hunters finally shot her when she retreated to her cubs. Note: The two cubs were cubs-of-the year, which have virtually no chance of survival, althought they will be listed as "probable" in agency reports.
13. Sub adult male no. 285, trapped near the Flagg Ranch, just south of Yellowstone NP. on October 5 or 6. This young male got into garbage on this ranch and was euthanized after they failed to find a zoo. It was the second of the two young males moved out of Big Sky (see mortality nos. 9 and 11).
14. Female with 3 cubs. Nov. 8. Shot by a hunting guide near the top of Mol Heron Creek in the Gallatin mountain range, Montana, on land owned by the Church Universal and Triumphant. Two human injuries. Montana Fish and Game people are going to watch for the cubs to see if they den. If they don't den, the cubs will be trapped and a home for them will sought. If no home is found, the cubs will be euthanized.