With hunting season out West comes a slew of grizzly attacks every fall. In the latest incident on October 2, an elk hunter was mauled by a sow with cubs about 60 miles north of the Montana border near Fort Steele, British Columbia.
Details released by the Canadian Conservation Officer Service indicate that the hunter, whose name has not been released, may have unknowingly drawn in the bears with elk calls. “We believe the hunter was calling and we believe the calls attracted the grizzly bear family group towards him,” Tobe Sprado, a Conservation Officer Service inspector, told a local news outlet. “And then obviously there was an encounter where he was mauled and sustained serious injuries.” The hunter is also thought to have fired a gunshot in self-defense, but officers are unsure if the bear was hit.
Following the attack, game wardens conducted an on-foot ground sweep, aerial surveys with a thermal drone, and a low-level helicopter flight to find the bears, but the efforts failed to turn them up. The hunter was also airlifted to a nearby hospital in critical condition, but has since shown positive signs of recovery.
The mauling was the second in British Columbia this fall. On September 29, another hunter was bitten by a sow further north near the town of Fort St. James.
A Growing Grizzly Problem
Though only a small handful of hunters are mauled every year by grizzlies in the US and Canada, the number of overall human-bear encounters is on the rise as a result of growing bear populations throughout the Rocky Mountains.
The grizzlies involved in the Forte Steele attack last week were likely part of the Northern Continental Divide population of bears, which inhabit an area stretching from north-central Montana well into British Columbia. The population, like others in the region, is at an all-time high. In the 1980s, the total number of bears was thought to be just 380. Now, that number is upwards of 1,100 animals, based on U.S. and Canadian estimates.
Similarly, grizzly numbers in the nearby Cabinet-Yaak and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem populations are higher than they’ve been in decades. As a result, the bruins are increasingly venturing out of the mountains and into areas more densely inhabited by humans—leading to an increase in human-bear interactions, and subsequently lethal bear removals.
The most recent, detailed information on these incidents comes from a newly released report by an interagency study team in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The new data shows that the region is once again on track for a record number of grizzly mortalities, with 63 bear deaths already reported between April 22 (when the first post-hibernation mortality was identified) and September 16 of this year. On average, that’s one bear death every two and a half days.
Over half of the deceased bruins were “problem” animals dispatched by state wildlife agents. The reasons listed range from cattle, pig, alpaca, and sheep depredation to food habituation and frequenting campgrounds or residential areas. The remainder of the deaths were mostly from vehicle collisions or unknown causes, with a handful thought to be natural deaths from bear-on-bear fights.
If the current mortality rate continues through hunting season—much of which still remains in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming—it’s a safe bet that the final tally will exceed last year’s record of 72 dead bears. It’s an unacceptably high number, according to many, including state legislators.
A Legislative Solution
Armed with data outlining both record numbers of bears and human-bear encounters, state agencies have been actively seeking to remove grizzlies from Endangered Species Act protection for years. A federal bill (HR 281) introduced in Congress earlier this year by Wyoming representative Harriet Hageman and co-sponsored by Montana representative Ryan Zinke aims to do exactly that, regarding the Yellowstone population.
“Instead of moving the goal line, we should be celebrating the win—the Endangered Species Act worked for grizzly bears in Greater Yellowstone,” Zinke said earlier this year. “If we are managing based on science, there must be an off-ramp for wildlife on the list once their goal is reached. Montana and Wyoming share more than a border, we share wildlife, ecosystems, and the shared responsibility to manage it properly.”
Just this month, on October 3, the bill was reported out of the House Natural Resources Committee, meaning it is up for consideration by the entire chamber. However, it’s sure to face headwinds. Over 50 wildlife groups, many from far beyond the Rocky Mountain region, have signed on in official opposition of the bill.
Concurrently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a remapping of grizzly bear populations that would consolidate the six current subpopulations in the Rocky Mountains into one “metapopulation.” It’s unclear if the proposal would help or hinder the delisting process, and it’s also possible that the entire plan could be upended or scrapped entirely by the Trump administration. No new updates have been published since the announcement this winter, but a final decision is expected this coming January.
For now, though, the delisting offramp remains a rocky one, as does the road to recovery for the BC hunter who was recently mauled. Metaphorically, the dinner table is set for the region to confront its grizzly problem, it’s just a matter of time until the feast.
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