Protecting Bears by Targeting Humans

She was cute. No one could deny that. But she was also clever, and that’s what cost the bear cub her life.

For weeks now, the black bear and her brother had been panhandling along this park’s trails, using their fuzzy charms to coax potato chips, bread and other human foods from hikers. The cubs, both a year old, nuzzled campers, licked their hands and hugged their legs.

What the humans gave them, however, wasn’t always enough. Two weeks ago, the sister bear skipped the cuddling and went straight for the food source, jumping on an 11-year-old Boy Scout and trying to claw the backpack off his back.

Park rangers tracked the animal down last week and killed it. The boy is fine. But the young bear was the latest casualty in a century-long love-hate relationship between humans and bears in the park.

Lately, there have been more interactions. Since January, park officials have recorded 214 incidents, a 149% increase from the same period last year, when there were 86 incidents. The encounters have included bears breaking into cars, stealing food from campsites and charging at hikers.

By feeding black bears, park rangers say, people are dooming them. Once the wild animals lose their fear of humans, the rangers say they must kill them or risk maulings and more damage to people’s property.

“It’s tragic and heartbreaking,” said Scott Gediman, spokesman for Yosemite National Park.

Many rangers are still upset over the bear cub’s death. Some say the mother bear is partly to blame.

“They learned it from her,” said park ranger Deb Schweizer. Last year, rangers watched the mother take her newborn cubs with her at night as she cruised campsites for food.

This year, separated from their mother, the young bears were even more forward, walking up to people and wrapping their paws around them.

“They’re very cute,” Schweizer said. “We tell people not to approach the bears. But when a little bear walks up to you, it’s hard to turn it down.”

But the pair’s adventurous days came to an end two weeks ago on the trail between Little Yosemite Valley and Half Dome, undone by a fragrant snack in the Boy Scout’s backpack. One of the bears jumped on his back, pulling him down. The boy escaped with scrapes on his neck and holes in his shirt, but from then on, the bear was a hunted animal.

Rangers first marked the suspect bear with blue paintballs. Then they documented reports from campers of aggressive encounters with a blue bear. After about a week, the rangers moved in, darting the bear with tranquilizers and killing it with an injection of potassium chloride. It is the park’s policy to kill animals that attack people.

The bear’s sibling and mother may be next, according to rangers who are tracking their behavior.

“It’s ironic,” Gediman said. “The national park is supposed to protect wildlife, and yet we have to euthanize bears to protect the people.” But that contradictory nature has long been a part of the park.

At Yosemite’s stores, bears are a big draw for visitors. Tourists rifle through bear-shaped pens and statues, while their children can select from black bear backpacks, fuzzy slippers and toy bears with friendly smiles.

But signs outside the stores send a different message: “Don’t feed the bears!” “Don’t approach the bears!” “Don’t be bear careless!”

The warnings are plastered all over the park -- on placards, brochures, lockers and restrooms. Guests checking into local hotels must sign a waiver confirming their bear awareness. There are films at visitor centers showing bears smashing their way into food-laden cars.

Those who stay overnight in the park are warned to remove all food from their cars, storing it in their rooms, or if they are camping, in steel lockers.

“We get two or three every day,” John Webb, a mechanic who has worked in the park’s garage for 29 years, said about damaged cars. “I’ve seen everything: tops caved in, seats torn up, doors ripped down. A car with food inside just looks like a lunch box to them.”

There has never been a mauling or fatal bear attack in the history of the park, but Yosemite has struggled to manage its bears since the early 1900s. Rangers have tried scaring them, trapping them, moving them to zoos and chasing them with dogs, according to a 1998 study on historical bear management.

Despite the ubiquitous warnings nowadays, rangers in the 1930s even tried feeding the bears to lure them out of the campsites and provide tourists with a regular attraction.

At one point rangers began killing aggressive bears in large numbers. By 1945, there were only an estimated three bears left in Yosemite Valley.

For decades, the struggle has pitted the intelligence of man versus that of bear. As often as not, the bear has won.

The old trick of tying food up in a tree doesn’t always work, said Steve Thompson, the park’s wildlife biologist. “We’ve seen mother bears who can’t reach send their cubs up to get the food.”

In the 1970s, rangers installed “bear-proof” dumpsters throughout the park. By the early 1990s, they were calling them “bear-resistant,” after several bears learned to climb in (though a few never learned to climb out).

The latest attempt to control the estimated 350 bears in the park involves electronic collars, which send a recorded message across the rangers’ radios whenever a collared bear approaches a campsite or parking lot.

“The problem is that the 10 collared bears have mostly stopped, but it’s the ones without collars that are coming now,” Thompson said.

Six years ago, after the number of bear incidents and property damage reached a high, the rangers made drastic policy changes.

The park secured more than $2 million in grants and nonprofit funds, and spent most of it on humans.

“That’s why these days, people joke that you can’t turn around without seeing a bear warning,” Gediman said.

The public education program was largely successful, with bear incidents dropping by half the first year and dipping even lower in following years.

This year, however, the numbers have shot back up, alarming and puzzling rangers.

An early and drier spring may be to blame, said park ranger Schweizer, providing fewer berries and grasses for the bears to eat. “But, to be honest, we’re not really sure of the reason,” she said.

The rangers are, however, urging visitors to help lower the numbers by keeping their food stowed properly. “The attitude used to be that the bears were the problem,” Gediman said. “But you can only alter bear behavior so much. The real focus now is on human behavior.”