One or more grizzly bears broke into multiple vehicles in Gardiner, entered several raft guide campgrounds, attempted to enter homes, and trashed the inside of a drive-thru coffee kiosk a few miles north of town within the last 10 days or so.
The Facebook account of Kirk Duvall published images of a bear he wrote was sifting through garbage near a hotel across from Duvall’s residence around 5 a.m. July 6.
“We’ve had grizzly bear activity in town for I would say most days over the past week or past 10 days or so,” said Morgan Jacobsen, spokesperson for the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
Jacobsen said it appears the incidents involve mostly one bear that’s been habituated to finding food left by humans. But another bear has also been reported, he said.
“We’re working to capture one or both of the bears to deal with the human safety risks that come with bear activity in this area,” Jacobsen said. “The efforts are ongoing. We haven’t captured any bears yet, but that is something we’re working on daily.”
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Whether the bears will be euthanized or captured and relocated depends on the situation.
“It depends on the extent of the conflict and what type of conflict it was,” Jacobsen said.
For bears that have spent their lives in wild places, normal behavior would be for them to be uncomfortable around people, and they usually leave the area when they encounter people, according to Jacobsen.
“But in this case, the bear does not seem to exhibit that behavior,” Jacobsen said. “It’s become habituated to finding food in a residential area.”
The reason the bears aren’t shying away from residential areas in the Gardiner Basin is because they’ve been able to gain access to food left by humans there before, and they’ve continued to gain access, according to Jacobsen.
“That’s one of the skills that they have that make them very good as survivors — they have a really good spatial memory when it comes to food, so if there’s a very specific location where they’ve got some food before that was easy to (access) and well worth it, they’ll keep coming to that location. Sometimes at the same time of year.”
That’s what Angela Tempo thinks may be happening at her home in Gardiner. Although she doesn’t leave food unsecured, the bear has been coming by repeatedly — which she said may indicate it remembers getting food at the location before she lived there. She’s been there a couple years, and is a guide with Yellowstone Wildlife Profiles, based in Gardiner.
A grizzly bear almost came through the window of her residence before being scared off between about 10:30 and 11 p.m. July 1. She wasn’t home at the time the bear arrived, but received a text message from a raft guide advising her the bear was in the area — it had been coming into the guides’ campground, which is a few blocks away from Tempo’s house. She got home after work and saw the bear trying to get in. She also saw trash strewn nearby due to a neighbor’s unsecured garbage can, she said.
“When I got to my house, there were two vehicles blocking my driveway, because they were taking pictures and videos of this bear trying to break into my house and eating all this trash,” Tempo said. “I was making a lot of noise with my car, like honking….”
The bear eventually took off toward the Yellowstone River, she said.
“He has been coming by in the last three nights,” Tempo said July 6.
She had an electric fence placed around the area overnight July 5-6, she said.
“He tried to break into a couple of my neighbor’s houses, too,” Tempo said.
In the last two weeks, one of the bears broke into a few cars on Scott Street, according to Tempo and another Gardiner resident. A few weeks ago, a bear also tried to get into someone’s camper, she said.
“He keeps getting close to different houses,” Tempo said.
On the Fourth of July, a bear broke into a car at one of the rafter’s campgrounds nearby, she said.
Tempo and her dog saw the bear during an early-morning walk in Gardiner about a week before June 6. After turning a street corner, the bear was there and reared up on its hind legs.
“So I was able to appreciate how big he was,” Tempo said.
The grizzly ran off toward the Yellowstone River after her dog jumped between them and barked.
“My dog is completely traumatized,” Tempo said.
She’s had a hard time sleeping, because her dog has taken to barking at any suspicious sound it hears overnight, according to Tempo. The dog, a male border collie-Australian shepherd mix, has been in a constant reactive state the last few days — which is especially bad, because she wanted to have him trained as a rescue animal.
“You cannot correct him and put him in a crate, because he’s not doing anything wrong,” she said of her dog. “Based on what happened in the last (few) days, he’s just trying to be helpful and be a guard dog.”
Tempo expressed frustration that some property owners haven’t been properly securing their trash.
“We do everything by the book, we use bear cans, we’re mindful about smells, we go pick up apples for people,” Tempo said. “And some people don’t care, they have no bear-proof cans or anything, so all the good work that some people do in trying to protect and keep the environment free of this guy, trying to be mindful about coexisting with (bears), is completely turned back by people that don’t do it.”
Evan Stout, organizer for Bear Awareness Gardiner, said a bear got into some unsecured trash overnight Monday to Tuesday in Gardiner. He said efforts had been made in that area to get property owners bear-proof garbage receptacles. But such measures are in vain if people don’t use them, he added.
Bear Awareness Gardiner offers free trash cans to all residents and cost shares cans and dumpsters with businesses. This effort was implemented to prevent the type of situation Gardiner’s now facing, Stout said.
“This has become a human safety issue,” Stout said Tuesday. “Securing trash, and all other attractants in a town like Gardiner is greater than a bear conservation issue, it’s a matter of public safety. Residents, businesses and visitors alike have a responsibility when visiting a unique place like Gardiner to do their part and keep the community safe and bears wild.”
It only takes one property owner not securing their trash to begin attracting a bear, which could keep coming back to that area the rest of its life until it is removed, according to Stout.
“Evan offers free bear trash cans for all residents, he gives discounts for business, but with the amount of rentals and business owners who are not mindful — it’s taking the entire community’s work and putting it in the trash,” Tempo said.
A few miles north of town, a bear broke into Cowboy Up Coffee, causing the business to close temporarily for cleanup. The business, which is just off Highway 89 north of Gardiner in the Sinclair Gas Station parking lot, sustained interior damage overnight July 3-4 and planned to reopen July 6.
Efforts were still underway Tuesday to remove the bears.
“Fish and Wildlife has done a good job of putting traps in town, talking to residents and telling them what to do and how to do it, so they’re trying hard,” Tempo said. “Jeremiah (Smith) has like 25-plus years of experience.”
Smith is a grizzly bear specialist with FWP.
“So, we’re in great hands,” Tempo said. “(The bear) is outsmarting him — he’s avoiding the traps. The day that they’re all here to trap the bear, he doesn’t show up to town.”
Stout said one of the bears in particular appears to be very good at avoiding the traps. The trapping effort has been underway ever since a bear was sighted in the Gardiner Basin on June 5 about 5 miles outside Gardiner, according to Stout.
“Historically, our busiest bear conflict season in Gardiner is
