Bear Management

2018 Bear Management Program Report

The Yellowstone Bear Management Team conducts both scientific research and bear management duties. You can read the annual reports that outline their efforts (and download for printing) below.
 

• 2018 Yellowstone Bear Management Program Annual Report (1.7mb pdf)
• 2019 Yellowstone Bear Management Program Annual Report  (2.3 mb pdf)

 

During its first century, Yellowstone National Park was known as the place to see and interact with bears. Hundreds of people gathered nightly to watch bears feed on garbage in the park’s dumps. Enthusiastic visitors fed bears along the roads and behaved recklessly to take photographs.

Beginning in 1931, park managers recorded an average of 48 bear-inflicted human injuries and more than 100 incidents of property damage each year in Yellowstone. In 1960, the park implemented a bear management program directed primarily at black bears and designed to reduce the number of bear-caused human injuries and property damages and to re-establish bears in a natural state. The plan included expanding visitor education about bear behavior and the proper way to store food and other bear attractants; installing bear-proof garbage cans; strictly prohibiting feeding of bears; and removing potentially dangerous bears, habituated bears, and bears that damaged property in search of food. The open-pit garbage dumps remained open.

 

In the early days of National Park Service management in Yellowstone, bears would be fed at at garbage dumps. Today, bears in the park are wild.

NPS

 

After 10 years, the number of bear-caused human injuries decreased slightly to an average of 45 each year. In 1970, Yellowstone initiated a more intensive program that included eliminating open-pit garbage dumps inside the park with the intention of returning bears to a natural diet of plant and animal foods.

Bear researchers and brothers John and Frank Craighead predicted bears would range more widely and come into more conflict with humans as the bears were weaned off of human food. This prediction was realized in the first years of the revised management program: an annual average of 38 grizzly bears and 23 black bears were moved to backcountry areas, and an annual average of 12 grizzly bears and 6 black bears were removed from the population. However, the number of bear-human conflicts decreased to an annual average of 10 each year after 1972. Bear removals also decreased.

In 1983, the park implemented a new grizzly bear management program that emphasized habitat protection in backcountry areas. The park established “bear management areas” that restricted recreational use where grizzly bears were known to concentrate. The goals were to minimize bear-human interactions that might lead to habituation of bears to people, to prevent human-caused displacement of bears from prime food sources, and to decrease the risk of bear-caused human injury in areas with high levels of bear activity. This program continues today. View a summary of bear-inflicted human injuries and fatalities.

Quick Facts

Early Interactions

• Late 1880s: Bears begin gathering at night to feed on garbage behind park hotels.
• 1910: First incidents of bears seeking human food along park roads.
• 1916: First confirmed bear-caused human fatality.

Early Management

• 1931: Park begins keeping detailed records of bear-inflicted human injuries, property damage, and bear control actions.
• 1931–1969: average of 48 bear-inflicted human injuries and more than 100 incidents of property damage occur annually.

Changes in Management in 1970

• 1970: Yellowstone implements a new bear management program to restore bears to a diet of natural foods and to reduce property damage and human injuries.
• Strictly enforcing regulations prohibiting the feeding of bears and requiring proper storage of human food and garbage.
• All garbage cans in the park convert to a bear-proof design.
• Garbage dumps close within and adjacent to the park.

Recent Progress

• Decrease in human injuries from 45 injuries per year in the 1960s to 1 injury per year in the 2000s.
• Decrease in property damage claims from 219 per year in the 1960s to an average of 15 per year in the 2000s.
• Decrease in number of bears that must be killed or removed from the park from 33 black bears and 4 grizzlies per year in the 1960s to an average of 0.34 black bear and 0.2 grizzly bear per year in the 2000s.

Publications & Reports

• Yellowstone Grizzly Bears: Ecology and Conservation of an Icon of Wildness
• Summary of bear-inflicted human injuries and fatalities.
• Bears & Menstruating Women (Information Paper BMO-7)
• Yellowstone National Park Bear Management Plan (627k PDF)
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Grizzly Bear Conservation Strategy

 

Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan: Population Monitoring Criteria (revised 2017)

	Was the criteria met?
Population Objectives	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
If the population in the Demographic Monitoring Area (DMA) is 674 or less, total mortality of independent-aged females and dependent young not to exceed 7.6% and mortality of independent-aged males not to exceed 15%. (Criterion instituted in 2017)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes
If the population in the DMA is between 674 and 747, total mortality of independent-aged females and dependent young not to exceed 9% and mortality of independent-aged males not to exceed 20%. (Criterion instituted in 2017)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes
If the population in the DMA is more than 747, total mortality of independent-aged females and dependent young not to exceed 10% and mortality of independent-aged males not to exceed 22%. (Criterion instituted in 2017)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes
Estimated % of total mortality of independent-aged females not to exceed 7.6%. (Criterion updated in 2017)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
Estimated % of total mortality of independent-aged males not to exceed 15%. (Criterion updated in 2017)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
Estimated % of mortality from human causes for dependent young not to exceed 7.6%. (Criterion updated in 2017)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
Sixteen of 18 Bear Management Units (BMUs) within the recovery area must be occupied by females with cubs; no two adjacent BMUs can be unoccupied during the 6-year observation average.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Demographic objective of 48 females producing cubs annually.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Population estimate ≥ 500 bears in the DMA. (Criterion instituted in 2014)	N/A	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

 

Recommended Reading

Grizzly Bears - Icon of Wildness Grab a copy today

 

More Information

• 

  Bear Safety

  Best practices for traveling safely in bear country.

• 

  Bear Management Areas

  Restrictions to reduce encounters between humans and bears.

• 

  Grizzlies in Greater Yellowstone

  Our thoughts on the conservation and protected status of grizzly bears.