Camping in grizzly country

9/24/2000

Fred’s notes on camping in Yellowstone grizzly country

references:

Steven Herrero, Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance (lots of good information but will also freak you out)

Kerry Gunther, head Yellowstone bear biologist, personal communication

Grizzlies are unpredictable, they aren’t machines, take this information and make your best call when in the field. The precautions are as much for the bears themselves, a rare and endangered species which occupies just a fragment of it’s former range in the lower 48.

Yellowstone averages 1 bear incident per year and 4 incidents with bison. However, in 2000, there were at least 5 bear incidents I know about.

In the Yellowstone ecosystem, there are 280 - 610 grizzlies, 348 animals.

There can be a macho element to camping in grizzly country. SCA crew leaders job is to minimize risk as much as possible. Familiarity with bears may get some Yellowstone trail crew personnel complacent as to safety issues. Need to give students good information without freaking them out. A high level of focus is demanded the whole time in the field, to be clean, stay together, not wander off, let people know where you are etc, this can grate on people and it is difficult, but it has to be the way it is. Students may be shy and self conscious to yell and make noise. People may feel an unwarranted sense of safety in camp or at the work site, as if there was a magical protective barrier; there isn’t, noise and precautions should be done in camp as well. Important for crew leaders to be on the same page about bears and to agree to minimize macho outlooks, agree to take the safest course.

Bear habits:

Bears hibernate relative to temperature and not food. In Yellowstone: in the late summer/ early fall, bears may be up a higher elevations eating the squirrel caches of white bark pine nuts, they could also be in valleys eating yampa root, clover. In spring, they will be looking for carcasses and following the green-up, fresh grass. With wolf reintroduction, there are more carcasses for bears. In disputes over carcasses between bears and wolves, each species “wins” about 50% of the encounters. There is not much direct competition for resources between the two species.

Different parts of a male grizzly’s range can be 100s of miles apart. In Pelican Valley, Kerry said there were never less than 16 bears occupying the area. Many times people would be hiking and have no idea there were bears close by, especially when the trail goes through big clover patches on the north side of the valley. In Yellowstone, bears often travel hiking trails at night. We saw a sow and two big cubs on the main trail to Pelican Springs cabin in the day.

There are habituated bears in the Park and it’s possible on the East end, there may be some food conditioned bears.

Stormy weather can agitate bears.

Be alert and knowledgeable, pay attention to environment, which way is wind blowing?, anticipate, use binoculars to scan around: day I scanned and saw sow and two cubs right near the trail we were heading for, they were invisible to naked eye. Binoculars are an essential piece of equipment. I saw 14 bears all summer, some only from great distance with the binoculars.

Response depends on how far away bear is and whether it has sensed you. If the bear is unaware, go downwind quietly and quickly, use cover, keep looking. If the bear is aware of you and still a couple of hundred yards away, do as above or go upwind so the bear can smell you. If the bear is aware but not aggressive, slowly back away, talk in even tones, maybe raise/wave arms slowly,  don’t stare at it. (...day we saw sow and two little cubs: bears kept coming towards us even though we were doing our best to make our presence known, finally they got with 300 yards and we packed up and left to the next knoll, the bears also changed course and then we went back to work Also, the other day when I was going to the “bathroom” and there was a bear right below me, it didn’t see me, I backed off, got the group together and when the bear came around the corner, I blew my whistle really loud and the bear took off running, for more than a mile it ran. We got a good look at that one.)

Basically two types of encounters with bears, sudden and when the bear deliberately seeks you out.

Sudden Encounters:

-best weapon is your brain, use it, don’t panic

-be aware of transitional zones, edges of meadows and woods, bear day bed areas

-Herrero says: without a fire arm for back up, repellents or aggression should only be used from long distances and then, only with tree to climb, however, experience from this last summer shows bears are shy and can be intimidated, and that repellents work good, but not always. Perhaps the bear that ran was the yearling male. It could have been the same one I saw near my tent one night at twilight, slinking away into the forest.

-most grizzlies flee, the most aggressive bears have been killed

-hiking is the way you suddenly encounter them, let then know you are coming!, make loud noises, high and low pitch, low pitch travels better

-when in thick brush, bear is supposed to hear warning noises while still far enough away not to feel threatened

-out in the open, in Pelican Valley, there are long rolling hills with no cover and the wind kicks up so much in the afternoon, it muffles almost all sound you can make, people should all have whistles and not be shy to yell, especially when approaching a hill top where you can’t see anything on the other side, approach the knoll cautiously

- year 2000 SCA students were mainly shy to yell, that has to be addressed in preprogram letter, practice yelling and not being self-conscious

-travel in groups

-no incidents in the Park with groups of 4 or more

-(this gets into subtle questions like whether you need a group to go to the latrine or whether students can go to their tents alone)

-play dead if attack is inevitable, stand ground as long as possible, don’t look in eye, talk softly, back away slowly, don’t threaten the animal

-don’t play dead before you are attacked unless charging bear is extremely close and you feel certain an attack is immanent, keep options open

-Kerry Gunther said, “you don’t know whether you will run or stand your ground until you are charged”, Kerry doesn’t carry pepper spray

-you can dodge an attack or distract bear by throwing a pack or camera, use clothing like a bullfight, run around trees

-drop a pack only if nothing else is available to drop, pack can protect you, bears do stop and check dropped stuff out, Yellowstone protocol now is to not drop anything or throw anything

-if companion is attacked, active person can draw bear’s attention, yell at it, then play dead when bear comes after him

-normally a bear will leave a few minutes after a sudden encounter

-avoid carcasses, there may have bears around and they will defend the carcass

-ears positioned down on the head is aggressive, swaying head side to side, huffing noises, clacking teeth aggressive as well

-seriousness of charge indicated by ear position, hair raised on back of neck and back

-3 guys who were charged in Pelican Valley 8/2000, bear charged from a long ways off and kept coming up to 10' away, when they all unloaded 3 pepper sprays on it and that drove it off

-guys near East entrance who came upon sow and cub, were charged, played dead, that worked, saw sow and cubs again and were charged, played dead, sow bit one guys hand, not seriously

-guy who was eating a sandwich near the NW area of Park, bear attacked him, knocked him out, ripped his shirt off, swatted him into a tree, guy came to with the bear’s head between his legs, breath smelled like mold, he pulled pepper spray off his suspenders and shot the bear in the mouth, it did a back flip and took off

-at 200 yards you may have time to climb a tree, climb the tree before the bear charges

The most danger is in motor camping areas from habituated, food conditioned animals or in back country situations and being careless with food.

If a bear is actively hassling you, do whatever to repel it or get away, i.e. bears entering camp at night and chewing on people, flee or fight. You can’t just do nothing, need a plan. It’s a scary idea, what to do if a bear comes and messes with you at night. Have a plan. Act aggressive if it is a young bear, sick or old and has been stalking you. If bear is after food, maybe toss some at it and get away, climb a tree. Don’t harass marauding grizzly with noise.

-inventory the trees in your area for possible climbing, while hiking and in camp, if there are no trees, do a lot of scanning and looking for bears, good climbing trees may be a good camp prerequisite

-as well, not everyone is going to be able to climb well and not everyone is going to get in same tree real fast, I felt a bit old and slow and trees were really not an option for me unless there is a lot of time

Avoid:

if you see a bear before it sees you and can retreat or detour without causing attention, this is as safe as possible

Camping in bear country:

-total cleanliness is called for

-however, it is impossible to prevent all food odors in camp area, especially kitchen, some spillage is inevitable, bears may come and check things out at night or when you are gone in the day, but as long as there is no reward, they generally won’t go down the food conditioned road

-body products: it is near impossible to get an array of body/ kitchen products that don’t smell like food, baking soda for foot odor,  sun screen, lip balm, water less soap, insect repellent, corn starch for no chafing, even talc has sweet odor, laundry detergent that has high, sweet odor, all can be very smelly, some sun screens are impossible to wash off and you smell like flowers and bears eat flowers

-I suggest washing all clothes beforehand in odorless detergent and making a strong effort to get all body products odor free, including soap and shampoo

-SCA First Aid kit should be specialized so as to have odor free products, we had to hang the First Aid kit because of the amount of smellies in it

-Yellowstone trail crews don’t change clothes at night for the tent unless they have had a major spill

-cook downwind from tent area, 100 plus yards

-hang food 12' high and 12' out, can set up pole from a thin tree or pull rope through two trees rather than do an angle hang

-put tents downwind from food hang area, Yellowstone guys didn’t do this, but Steve Sarles thought it was a good idea

-in Yellowstone, prevailing wind is SW to NE

-a tight camping set up is better so you can group up faster, don’t put tents in a circle, rather in a line, so bear doesn’t feel trapped

-eat all that is cooked

-don’t use sump pit, broadcast dish water after straining with a screen, zip loc food scraps off of screen or burn completely

-with tooth brushing, spit out toothpaste with tight lips to atomize and broadcast it, don’t leave distinguishable globs of old toothpaste on plants

-any burning of food has to be complete, down to ash

-all left overs in sealed plastic bag

-dried foods have low odor, try to use low odor foods

-before bed, wash off odors and food residue, even insect repellent

-store food well away from tents

-a bear pole or cable line may indicate history of troublesome bears in area, ask personnel about food conditioned and habituated bears in the area

-don’t camp near big animal trails or seasonal feeding grounds for bears

-don’t camp where food and garbage have been left

-don’t camp if there is fresh bear sign

-study First Aid: wound management

-with packers and stock, bears will eat horse dung, clear it out

be aware of relation to site to seasonal bear habitat, travel routes, food habits, habitat preference, bear sign, is the site naturally attractive to bears? Try to camp in open.

-worst site: just off trail in dense brush

8/2000 SCA crew camped where there was fresh bear scat, a medium size animal trail through camp, we cooked smelly foods and went into tents with smelly sun screen and lip balm and corn starch, did the best we could, tried to minimize it, skin cancer or bears at night?  Raw, chafing thighs or corn starch on your pants and underwear? Some students couldn’t even walk because of the chafing and some were very fair skinned, needed sun screen yet their products smelled like flowers.

-bottom line, in Yellowstone, there are few places where there won’t be animal trails or some fresh bear sign, the animal trails are actually more troublesome for bison, which can just start hanging out all in your camp, avoid large animal trails because the bison will come, recall night of the bison bull right outside my tent

-do camp near escape trees or in the open where there is no cover for bears

-if pack has no food odor, can leave it on the ground with flaps open (problem of internal frame packs, food has to be packed inside the pack)

-put all food inside multiple layers of plastic bags

- in tents, have one foot between person and tent wall, have flashlight, spray

-if pissing at night, use flashlight to check for bears or use piss bottle in tent, use piss to mark area around tent, however, large herbivores may come to lick and eat pissy dirt

In the end, you just have to do the best you can, some violations of the above protocols are going to happen. We had no bear incidents. There will be some fear, especially at night in your tent, but you become accustomed to being out there.

11/7 entry from notes on Herrero,  Discovery TV show

-bears grab face and snout of each other to disarm the weapons system

-play dead and cover face and neck, splay legs widely, play dead at last instant or immediately after being hit

-tent in the night: curious, possibly predatory

-predation: different from defensive attack, with defensive attack, they puff and drool, with predation they are curious, get pushy, need to intimidate them

-grizzly is essence of wild nature, living sustainably, a future with wild nature with a sensitive species

Finnish corellian bear dogs