What should you do when encountering a bear? - Billings Gazette
Dramatic video captured in May by a Montana wildlife official shows a mother black bear with cubs running toward a knot of camera-clicking tourists as the animals try to cross a bridge in Yellowstone National Park. No one is hurt, but at one point the adult bear rushes full-tilt toward a group of people standing at one end of the bridge. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Bob Gibson witnessed the encounter and said some visitors ignored or were slow to heed a park official’s commands to leave the bridge. “The bear was the only one doing anything right there,” Gibson said. Each year, Yellowstone sees about 1,000 so-called bear jams, in which grizzly or black bear sightings prompt dozens and sometimes hundreds of tourists to pull over their vehicles hoping for a photo. Ideally, the visitors on the bridge would have stayed in their vehicles, said Kerry Gunther, the park’s bear management program leader. Once the bears started approaching, the tourists worsened the situation by running and screaming, Gunther said. They instead should have grouped together on one side of the bridge and allowed the bears to pass. Yellowstone has never had a bear-caused injury among groups of three or more people, he said. Source: billingsgazette.com
