YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — An adult female black bear was lethally removed from Yellowstone on July 11 after a string of troubling incidents at a backcountry campsite in the park’s northern Blacktail Deer Creek drainage.
The bear first made an appearance on June 7, when it crushed an unoccupied tent at the site. Then, on July 11, it returned, this time climbing the food storage pole, tearing down properly secured food bags, and helping itself to the campers’ snacks. Once a bear gets a taste of human food, officials say, things tend to escalate quickly.
And escalate they did.
Citing “a clear threat to visitor safety,” Yellowstone staff made the difficult decision to remove the bear after it demonstrated the ability to defeat bear-proof storage methods, a rare and concerning feat.
“We go to great lengths to protect bears and prevent them from gaining access to human food,” said Kerry Gunther, Yellowstone’s bear management biologist. “But occasionally, a bear outsmarts us or overcomes our defenses.”
This marks the first management-related black bear killing in Yellowstone since 2020, when another bear injured campers and accessed food at a different backcountry site.
Yellowstone officials remind all visitors that each of the park’s 293 backcountry campsites is equipped with food storage poles or bear boxes and that using them properly isn’t just a recommendation, it’s a vital part of staying safe and keeping bears wild.
For more info on bear safety in Yellowstone go https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/bears
