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‘Coexistence with grizzly bears is possible,’ says Jackson author in latest book

 A man wearing a black puffy vest and blue plaid shirt holds a book titled “Grizzly Confidential.” Behind him is green grass and aspen trees.
Hannah Habermann
/
Wyoming Public Media
Jackson-based author and paramedic Kevin Grange with his new book “Grizzly Confidential” outside the Teton County Library.

There have been some high-profile grizzly bear run-ins in the state this summer. Most recently, an archery hunter was attacked by a bear in late September in the Upper Green River Basin and ultimately killed it with a handgun.

A new book titled "Grizzly Confidential" explores how grizzlies and humans can live together and decrease conflicts, especially in landscapes where their worlds are increasingly overlapping. Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann talked with Jackson-based author and firefighter paramedic Kevin Grange about management strategies, endangered species status and what it actually looks like to "respect the bear."

Editor’s note: This interview was edited lightly for brevity and clarity.

Kevin Grange: I've always been fascinated with grizzly bears, but when 399 took her four cubs on a walkabout around Jackson Hole [in 2021], I was conflicted. I thought I loved bears and I was a bear person, but now they were inconveniencing me where I mountain bike, where I hike, where I trail run. My love of them was tested and I realized I needed to know more about them.

So, I embarked on this journey just to learn everything I could about them, see if I could understand grizzly bears and answer the important question of how can we coexist.

Hannah Habermann: Your book is full of interviews and conversations with grizzly bear experts from around the world. What are a few especially juicy grizzly bear facts you learned while working on this project?

KG: When most people think about brown bears, they only see their size and their strength, but I'm really fascinated with their hibernation physiology, that they can gain all this weight and not get diabetes and heart disease, and they can slow their heart rate to 8 to 10 beats per minute. Yet their blood doesn't clot, so they don't get strokes.

So what this might mean for the medical community and for saving human lives, I think is really fascinating.

A very big grizzly bear shows its teeth to the camera in a field of tall grass next to a river.
Kevin Grange
An image of “Chops,” a 1,200 pound bear that Grange encountered at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary in Alaska.

I thought they were just this ferocious carnivore, but what I learned is grizzly bears are actually opportunistic omnivores. They're mainly vegetarian, and occasionally they'll have a side helping of meat or fish.

I also learned that they use a process of delayed implantation. When they mate, the egg will get fertilized, but it doesn't implant into the uterine wall until the sow gains enough weight to support the pregnancy, which to me is fascinating. There's like a consciousness there.

I also learned they're highly intelligent. They're smart as an ape and just have these big, goofy personalities when they're not food-stressed.

HH: Given that Wyoming's grizzly population is growing, are people learning to live with bears here?

KG: I think we are, over time. I think the new normal should be whether you're hiking, camping, fishing, is just to expect bears. Have it preset in your mind and with those you're with, what to do when you see a bear and just the best practices of staying safe in bear country.

HH: On that topic, it seems like there have been more cases of grizzlies in unexpected places. For example, one was spotted earlier this spring outside the Bighorns, which has historically not been grizzly bear territory. That bear was ultimately euthanized after attacking cattle in the area. So, how do you think people and land managers can adapt to grizzlies that are on the move?

KG: I think it needs to be a community solution. We all have to work together to support having grizzlies on the landscape. So, if a grizzly bear is near a ranch and does attack a cow, as a community we can reimburse that rancher with a carcass reimbursement program. We can maybe help pay for the electrified fence.

Then as a community, just work together to secure our garbage, compost, bird feeders and beehives. It really does have to be a thousand small little actions versus one big action, because if attractants are secured at my house and my neighbor across the street isn't doing it, then it's not going to really work. The bear is just going to cross the street and get into that food source.

HH: Thinking about a topic that's been pretty hot recently, some officials in Montana and Wyoming say grizzlies should be taken off the endangered species list. Based on your research while writing this book, do you think a delisting would help or hurt human and bear relationships in the area?

KG: It's a very complex question and to be honest, I think it's double-sided. In some ways, if you delist it, there's a certain segment of the population that will become more tolerant of having bears on the landscape for one reason or another.

But then on the other side, the bears in the lower 48, they’re always food stressed. They're often displaced by humans and our roads and whatnot. It's not really a huge population. So I can certainly see the reason not to delist them.

Two men stand together next to a red and tan floatplane docked on the water.
Kevin Grange
“Grizzly Confidential” author Kevin Grange (right) with Kodiak Island floatplane pilot Willy Fulton (left). According to Grange, Fulton once hunted bears but now chooses not to.

HH: Staying in that vein, Montana and Wyoming have been working together to move bears from one ecosystem to another in the hopes of increasing genetic diversity and also getting the species delisted. Do you think this sort of artificial migration could succeed?

KG: I think it's a good start, and it raises awareness that we need to connect these ecosystems. Ultimately, I think it's a band-aid, and I think we need to have natural corridors, connected habitats, whether it's building a wildlife corridor or bridge.

But to me, that's sort of the one question that a lot of people aren't really asking. When you look at a map of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, it's just surrounded by roads. To me, one of the biggest detriments to brown bears thriving and surviving in this area is just getting those landscapes connected. It's dealing with the roads, whether it's logging roads, whether it's highways, and just giving them a way to find that safe passage between, say, Glacier and Yellowstone [National Parks].

HH: You return to this phrase ‘Respect the bear and the bear will respect you’ throughout the book. For you, what does that respect look like?

KG: To me, the phrase sounded so simple when I first heard it, but then kind of like a zen cone, it just got really deep and cyclical and complex. Ultimately what it came to mean for me was if you respect the bear, you'll make an effort to learn about it. Once you learn about bears, you'll begin to understand them. Once you understand them, you'll act consistently and safely around them.

If you do that, bears will act consistently around you and they won't react defensively or aggressively. So it really comes full circle.

A photo of a book sitting against a rock titled “Grizzly Confidential” with an image of a grizzly bear in front of the Teton Mountains. The cover states “An Astounding Journey into the Secret Life of North America’s Most Fearsome Predator.”
Kevin Grange

HH: Thinking about more people moving into bear territory or more bears moving into people territory, do you have any words of wisdom or advice you would share to people who are coming into this human bear relationship for the first time?

KG: I'd like to just let people know that coexistence with grizzly bears is possible and it's also worthwhile. The discipline that it takes to be a bear aware community – securing attractants, using the best practices when you're hiking – it's really not that hard. Me and my wife at our house, we've secured our attractants and it just feels good to not always be apex, to not always be number one, but to share the landscape with grizzly bears and all the species that fall underneath them.

HH: I know it's hard to condense a 250 page book into a short conversation, so anything else you'd like to add?

KG: I think here in the lower 48 states, there's a lot of groups that have different feelings on brown bears and surprisingly, they all want them on the landscape – animal rights groups, the biologists and the managers, even the hunting community. I think one way to move forward is to start with that shared goal and then work backwards. We all want grizzly bears on the landscape. So I think that's important and I think that's the way to move forward.

Hannah Habermann is the rural and tribal reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She has a degree in Environmental Studies and Non-Fiction Writing from Middlebury College and was the co-creator of the podcast Yonder Lies: Unpacking the Myths of Jackson Hole. Hannah also received the Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing & Journalism Fellowship from the Wyoming Arts Council in 2021 and has taught backpacking and climbing courses throughout the West.

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