On Sept. 16, a grizzly bear attacked a hiker in Yellowstone National Park. He was able to walk out and recover. While grizzly attacks are rare, some states are trying to reduce bear encounters. They’ve stepped in to help manage the iconic, federally protected species, as well as the people. One solution involves a “robo bear.”
This story is part of a series following people who get up close to grizzly bears, as the debate rages on about whether they should remain protected by the Endangered Species Act.
About 100 residents and visitors waited eagerly in a parking lot in Jackson, Wyoming, the gateway to Grand Teton National Park, where the ecosystem is home to about 1,000 grizzlies.
They were there to get a free can of bear spray, the most popular way to fend off a bear. But first they have to practice using it.
“Aim right at the bear face, maybe slightly downward,” said one Wyoming Game and Fish employee wearing the department’s signature bright red polo and handing out practice canisters of bear spray.
Meanwhile, Wildlife Biologist Mark Aughton readied a plastic, motorized statue of a grizzly, the size of a cub. He drove it to the end of the parking lot with a remote control, just like a toy car.
“Alright, so I'll have you guys line up,” Aughton said to five people, directing them to face away from the grizzly, gripping their spray.
Then Aughton accelerated the robo bear toward them — teeth bared.
“Bear, bear, bear,” he yelled.
The people whipped around, threw off the safety tab and fumbled to pull the trigger. A few successfully discharged the spray in time.
The mist from the practice canisters smelled like nail polish remover, unlike the real stuff. If the contents from actual bear spray gets in your face, it can feel like hot peppers being stuffed in your nose and leaves most people crying on the ground.
“It's just a huge benefit to have this physical, tangible metric of like, ‘Oh, I'm totally not prepared,’ or, ‘Oh, I did all right,’” Aughton explained.
About half of Aughton’s job is teaching people how to stay out of trouble. He spends the other half dealing with conflicts.
“We're going to be a lot more lenient with a bear that has maybe found a bit of bird seed that was unattended away from a house, versus a bear that has tried to break into a shed,” he said.
They try to catch the bears on their first offense before they’re too used to humans and their food. Sometimes they relocate the bears. Other times they’re too late and decide to euthanize them.
“I think we're living in coexistence right now,” said Dan Thompson, Aughton’s boss. “We have a lot of bears and a lot of people, and that increases a lot of conflict potential so we’re trying to do things and reduce that as much as possible.”
The National Park Service says about one in 2.7 million visitors is injured by a grizzly in a place like Yellowstone. Bears are more likely to end up hurt. More than 50 grizzlies have died this year in the area, many hit by cars or euthanized for attacking livestock.
But Thompson said the population has healthy numbers and its recovery, since being designated as a federally threatened species in 1975, is a success story. Yet, grizzlies have remained on the endangered species list.
“Being stuck in this suspended animation that we have been in for a while, doesn't allow you to finish the story,” said Thompson, who’s led the large carnivore section at Wyoming Game & Fish for over a dozen years.
Many environmental groups want to see grizzlies stay federally protected, since they still occupy only a slice of their historic range. But the governors of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho want them delisted. That could mean starting limited hunting seasons and states assuming complete management of the bears, which Thompson said is already happening.
He has to get permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take certain actions but he said, “We’re doing all the work on the ground now.”
Thompson’s staff responds to conflicts, reducing things that attract bears like trash and bird feeders, and educating the public on how to keep the bears at bay.
That includes Game and Fish employees like Aughton, who was busy providing tips to participants at the Jackson event.
“The whole goal is that by the time that this is out of its holster, all you're doing is pointing and spraying.”
As the event wrapped up, people lingered around the robo bear, which Aughton said does have some nicknames.
“I’ve heard kids sometimes will call it Roberto,” he said, laughing.
With that, Roberto is loaded into a trailer. The bear has a busy schedule charging people around the state.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
