Heavy toll: Grizzly expert says humans killing too many bears

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

At least 290 grizzly bears have died in and around Yellowstone National Park since 1980, and humans or their machines killed 188 of them.

That number needs to be reduced, according to Chris Servheen, the federal biologist leading grizzly recovery efforts. He called those deaths "preventable, to some extent."

The 188 human-caused deaths include 49 bears killed in self defense, 17 percent of the total. Of those killed in self defense, 35 were killed by hunters seeking other game, which Servheen described as "an armed individual who gets in trouble with a bear, feels threatened and shoots the bear."

In other places, the percentage of bears killed by hunters is lower, but "in the Yellowstone ecosystem, this is a big deal," he told the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which is meeting in Bozeman at the Grantree Inn.

Although there has been considerable progress in getting backcountry users to keep their camps clean and store their food so bears can't steal it and get addicted to it, much more needs to be done, he said.

"There's a lot of room for improvement in sanitation," he said.

Reducing the number of encounters between grizzlies and hunters is a longstanding goal of bear managers and bear advocates, but a difficult one to accomplish.

The guidelines for safe travel in bear country ask people to travel in groups, avoid dawn and dusk and make lots of noise. Hunters who follow those rules don't have much chance of bagging an elk.

He asked the committee to form a task force to explore ways to reduce the conflicts.

"Some of these are not preventable," he said of the encounters between grizzlies and people.

But some of them might be, he added.

"People get themselves into positions where they feel their life is threatened," he said.

Servheen outlined several types of bear deaths over the past two decades, in addition to the bears killed in self defense:

-- 59 bears attracted to homes or camps;

-- 37 shot in "vandal killings," when somebody shot a grizzly just because they don't like them or the government;

-- 11 killed for livestock depredation;

-- 10 killed in capture operations;

-- and 13 grizzlies killed by people who thought they were shooting a black bear.

Although lots of grizzlies are being killed, the population appears to be growing.

John Emmerich, of the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish, pointed to grizzly expansion and said he wondered if people killing bears to defend their life is having that much of an impact on the overall population.

Bears are occupying areas where they haven't been seen in decades. One U.S. Forest Service report put the number of grizzlies in the ecosystem at 530.

Pat Flowers, head of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks office in Bozeman, said his agency is working with county governments to help people live with bears.

"If bears aren't in your county yet, they may be soon," he said he's telling county commissioners.

Federal officials are working on the lengthy documents necessary to propose removing the grizzly from the list of federally protected species. Servheen said he hopes to see those documents complete by late 2004.

Scott McMillion is at scottm@dailychronicle.com

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