Spokane7
50°
August 2, 2010 in Region
Grizzly in triple mauling was light, not starving
This photo provided by provided by ZooMontana shows one of the female grizzly bear cubs whose mother killed one person and mauled two others in a late-night attack at a Montana campground last week.
(Full-size photo)(All photos)
BILLINGS, Mont. — A grizzly bear that preyed on three campers outside Yellowstone National Park was underweight but not starving, and it was in an area with ample natural food supplies, wildlife officials said today as they worked to figure out why the animal attacked.
With the necropsy on the female grizzly still being analyzed, officials had no explanation for what caused the bear to rampage through a campground Wednesday with cubs in tow.
“Trying to make some connection between body size of a bear and strange behavior is a stretch,” said Chris Servheen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist coordinating the investigation.
Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich., was killed, and two other people — a woman from London, Ontario, and a man from Colorado — were injured in the nighttime attacks at the Soda Butte Campground outside Cooke City.
The sow was euthanized Friday. Its three cubs are now in a Billings zoo.
The attack was the most brazen in the Yellowstone area since the 1980s, stirring speculation that the bear suffered some physical ailment or was driven to desperation by tight food supplies.
Investigators were working through all possibilities, but Servheen said “nothing obvious has emerged as yet.”
The sow was at least 10 years old but had healthy teeth indicating it was not a geriatric animal, said Andrea Jones with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks. Some grizzlies live more than 20 years.
It weighed 221 pounds — less than the average of 300 to 400 pounds but still within a healthy range.
The director of ZooMontana on Sunday described the cubs as malnourished. But Jones said her agency was not describing them that way; the animals were underweight but not starving.
And the number of cubs, although higher than the average of 2.2 cubs per female, was still within the norm, said Chuck Schwartz, a grizzly bear expert with the U.S. Geological Survey.
“She was small, her yearlings were small, but we see small runty cubs, small runty yearlings,” Schwartz said. “The only thing that’s unusual to me is the fact that this is a predatory event.”
A wildlife biologist from Alaska, the state with the most grizzly bears, said figuring out why bears attack humans is sometimes impossible. Most grizzlies only attack when threatened or surprised, but every once in a while, one hunts down humans for no discernible reason, said Jessica Coltrain with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
“They are large predators that have the capacity to do damage,” she said.
The Yellowstone region has an estimated 600 grizzlies, an omnivorous species with a diet of berries, elk, fish, moths, ants and even pine nuts.
The beetle-caused decimation of the whitebark pine has been cited by environmentalists as putting grizzlies in greater danger of extinction because some bears rely on whitebark pine nuts as a mainstay.
A federal judge agreed last year, citing declines in the tree’s numbers to restore threatened species protections for Yellowstone grizzlies. Those protections were lifted in 2007.
Schwartz cautioned against extrapolating problems with that one food source to come up with any conclusion about the Soda Butte attacks. Because whitebark pine nuts don’t become available until later in the summer, “it’s somewhat irrelevant to this case,” he said.
Residents around Cooke City, half a mile from the campground, reported seeing the grizzly family around the small tourist town in recent weeks. State wildlife agents said they received no complaints of any run-ins between the animals and humans.
Soda Butte Campground has been closed since the maulings, but authorities today reopened two others that were shut as a precaution.
© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Children permitted at Washington prison powwows 
Mr_Bloggy on August 02 at 7:25 p.m.
Global warming. We will see more of these attacks as the earth burns up.
de3 on August 02 at 8:15 p.m.
There isn’t any evidence linking this bear attack to global warming.
According to the US Geological Survey, bears feed on whitebark pine nuts beginning in mid-August until late fall. The attack occurred in late July before that feeding begins; the NRDC’s claim linking whitebark pine infestations to global warming is not supported by the evidence and Yellowstone Natl Park has said that food supplies are abundant this year.
According to the USGS (link below), whitebark pine die off in the vicinity of Yellowstone is low with a mean mortality of 7%. By comparison, in other areas of Montana, the USGS documents white bark pine die offs in the 40% to 60% range.
The USGS says “dramatic declines are primarily attributable to a disease, white pine blister rust, and fire exclusion. Blister rust is an exotic fungus accidentally introduced from Europe to western North America around 1910. A massive effort to control blister rust was unsuccessfully waged from 1930-1970. White pine blister rust has severely damaged cone production capability and whitebark pine regeneration is currently limited by seed availability.”
Please see
http://nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/whitebar.htm
The USGS does not link this to climate change. Nor does the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation http://www.whitebarkfound.org/threats.html
An environmental advocacy group, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) claims a link between white pine blister rust and climate change. But other scientists dispute that. Please see
http://bsi.montana.edu/acloserlook/blogs/twila-moon/whitebark-pine-endangered-species
The alleged link between human induced global warming and this bear attack is not supported by the above.
monkeyman on August 02 at 11:02 p.m.
“… the average of 2.2 cubs per female, was still within the norm, said Chuck Schwartz…”
Hmm, I thought anything above 2.5 or 2.6 cubs would be above normal, 3 sounds quite a lot… :)
Would the authorities now look for foster care for these cubs? I am wondering if other options were considered, e.g. let the mom/cubs live together (captivity), at least until the cubs were older. They will probably be prisoner in any case….
lewis8457 on August 03 at 7:25 a.m.
Yes the rest of their loves will be spent in a zoo i guess that is a lot better then being dead.
The list of foods in their diet should tell the whole story. 400 pound animal is supposed to live on berries and ants?
They need meat but man needs to have the elk for himself. Isn’t that what killing the wolves is all about? keeping the elk for ourselves instead of the animals they are supposed to feed?
In fact if this bear had killed a elk it would have been put down for that, with man around there is no winning in the animal kingdom.
We will see much more of this as the wooded land gets less and less and man decides the food for the wilds belong to him.
This was a tragedy for both sides this time.