Bighorn National Forest

USDA Forest Service
Bighorn National Forest
2013 Eastside 2nd Street
Sheridan, WY 82801
307-674-2600

Telephone for the
Hearing Impaired
307-674-2604

Bear Awareness

Seeing a bear can be one of the most memorable and exciting experiences of a National Forest visit. Bears seem adorable, almost human at times. After their long winter hibernation, bears are quite hungry, and overcome their fear of humans to seek out food. Bears have color vision, acute hearing, and a keen sense of smell. They learn quickly, and remember feeding locations for years, which is why it is imperative to never feed bears.

Bears are extremely adept at searching out food. They can swim, climb trees, bend open car doors, and pry out windshields.

They adapt their lifestyles to the availability of food, often becoming nocturnal to avoid confrontations with people, rather than sleeping at night, like we usually do.

For more information concerning bear identification, contact the Wyoming Game and Fish Department at (307) 777-4600 between 8:00AM and 5:00PM Mountain Time for further information or visit their website: http://gf.state.wy.us/

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR FOOD AND PROPERTY:

• The best way to prevent food pilfering in bear country is to avoid the bears. That means by-passing campgrounds with bear tracks, fecal droppings, and scattered garbage. These are signs that bears are regular visitors there.

• At any location, keeping a clean camp in crucial. The less food odor in your camp, the less chance the bears will linger when they make their rounds. Wash dishes immediately and dump the water away from the camp. Completely burn any edible garbage, including grease. Most bears will not enter a tent with humans in it, but it only makes sense to keep all food and food odors out of tents and sleeping bags. Wash food from your face and hands before going to bed, and hang clothing beyond reach of bears if it has food or cooking grease on it.

• While car camping, food should not be stored in vehicles with convertible tops. Properly wrapped or sealed food is normally safe when stored in the trunk of a hard-topped car (provided all windows are closed).
• Try not to cook more food than you can eat to minimize the amount of food waste that must be packed out with trash. DO NOT BURY FOOD WATER OR THROW IT IN THE WATER SOURCE.
• Avoid cooking greasy or smelly foods, if possible (i.e. bacon, sausage, etc.).
• Use a sump hole to dispose of dirty dishwater and cooking liquids, NOT LEFT OVER FOOD.
• Store food away from sleeping area. Store food in zip-lock plastic bags, or air-tight containers.
• Ice chests are not bear resistant.
• Deposit garbage in bear-resistant containers where available, or store as food. NEVER BURY IT!
• Camp near an escape tree in grizzly country--or camp in the open, well away from any cover for bears.
• Set up tent sites away from areas where food has been eaten, stored, or prepared. Never eat or store food in a sleeping bag or tent. The odor will remain even after the food is gone.
• Any scented items should be stored with food. Examples are: candy, gum, lip balm, insect repellent, toothbrush, toothpaste, first aid kit, or water bottles filled with flavored drinks.
• Keep sleeping bags and personal gear clean and free of odor. Don't sleep in the same clothes you wore while cooking. Carry rope with you to store/suspend food and/or odor-contaminated items.
• Do not store packs in tent. Store packs off the ground out of reach of small animals with the flaps and pockets open. Some animals will chew the shoulder straps trying to get salt from the perspiration on the straps.
• Used tampons and pads are known to attract bears. For proper disposal, put them in a double zip-lock bag and pack them out. Put a used tea bag or crushed aspirin in with them to reduce odor. DON'T BURY THEM!
• Dispose of fish entrails by burying them. In the high country, do not throw them in lakes or streams. In grizzly bear areas, bury them 1/2 mile from camp, or pack them out.
• Where hunting is permitted, keep game meat out of reach of bears.
• Horse pellets should be stored the same as food.
• Use caution where visibility or hearing is limited. Don't surprise bears while hiking. Make noise. Hike during daylight hours and in groups when possible.
• DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS! It may cause wildlife to lose their fear of humans. It may create a dependence which could cause them to starve once people leave, or cause them to associate humans with food. A FED BEAR IS A DEAD BEAR!!! A bear that is habituated to eating trail food is essentially a dead bear. Bears that are trapped and relocated have a slim rate of survival. Therefore, if a bear gets your trail food, you are responsible for its death.

What to Do If a Black Bear Visits

A black bear in camp requires caution but is not cause for great alarm. Most are timid enough to be scared away by yelling, waving, and banging pans. But a few are too accustomed to people to be bothered. Many people have lost their food and vacation by being timid. Campers experienced with black bears simply chase them away before the bears settle in to eating a week's supply of vacation food. They make sure the bear has a clear escape route and then yell, wave, and rush to no nearer than 15 feet of the bear. This is especially effective when several people do it together. If alone, a person might create the illusion of numbers by throwing sticks through the underbrush. Don't feed the bears or try to pet them. Touching a wild bear can elicit a nip or cuff.

A recent study by the National Park Service showed that bears sometimes are harder to chase after they have begun eating. Some bears in that study gave low intensity threats when people slowly approached closer than 15 feet, but all bears that were chased retreated. No visitors were attacked. People are often more timid at night, but bears retreat at night as well as by day. Capsaicin spray repellent usually persuades bears to leave when it is sprayed into their eyes. Capsaicin, the active ingredient of cayenne peppers, has long been used by mailmen as a dog repellent. In more than 200 trials, no bear gave any sign of anger after being sprayed, sometimes repeatedly. Most immediately turned and ran, stopping eventually to rub their eyes. The repellent irritates the eyes for several minutes but causes no injury.

How Dangerous are Black Bears?

Black bears can injure or kill people, but they rarely do. When pressed, they usually retreat, even with cubs. Attacking to defend cubs is more a grizzly bear trait. (Be aware that Grizzlies have been known to inhabit the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness). Black bear mothers often leave their cubs and flee from people, and those that remain are more likely to bluff-charge than attack. Still, it is prudent to use extra caution with family groups that allow close approaches because mothers are generally more nervous than other bears. Nevertheless, chances of being attacked around campsites by any black bear are small. Unprovoked, predatory attacks by black bears are rare but highly publicized. Such attacks have accounted for all 23 deaths by non-captive black bears across North America this century. Most occurred in remote areas where the bears had little or no previous contact with people, rather than in and around established campsites. The worst attack occurred in Ontario in 1978 when a black bear killed and partially consumed three teenagers who were fishing. Predatory attacks by black bears are usually done without bluster or warning. People involved in such attacks can improve their chances by fighting rather than playing dead. Deaths from such attacks average a little more than one every four years across the United States and Canada.

By comparison, a person is about 180 times more likely to be killed by a bee than by a black bear and 160,000 times more likely to die in a traffic accident. Each year there are many thousands of encounters between black bears and people, often unknown to the people because the bears slip away so quietly. Menstrual odors have been shown to attract bears, but there is no record of a black bear attacking a menstruating woman.

Dozens of minor injuries, some requiring stitches, have occurred across North America when people petted or crowded black bears they were feeding or photographing. Under those circumstances, black bears may react to people as they do to bears with bad manners, by nipping or cuffing with little or no warning. Also, people who tease bears with food have been accidentally injured when the bear quickly tried to take it. Fortunately, black bears usually use at least as much restraint with people as they do with each other. Unlike domestic dogs, which often are territorial and aggressive toward strangers, black bears typically behave as the subordinate toward people when escape is possible.

Most injuries from black bears are minor and result from feeding, crowding, or petting. Most bears will not come this close. If one does, teasing it with food is especially risky.

Black bears that want our food sometimes use threats or bluffs to get it, as has been reported by campers, picnickers, and backpackers. The most common behavior of this sort is blowing, which may be accompanied by clacking teeth, lunging, laid back ears, slapping the ground or trees, and/or a short rush. The same behavior is used to scare other bears from feeding areas. The sounds and actions are all done explosively, with effective results. However, it is rare for a black bear to attack a person during or after such a demonstration. All blowing bears observed by the author retreated when pursued. A less common sound is the resonant "voice" of a bear. This is used to express intense emotions (fear, pain, and pleasure), including strong threats. Black bears with ready escape routes seldom use this threat toward people. Grunts are used in non threatening communication to cubs, familiar bears, and sometimes people. Encounters with bears are remembered and retold for years to come. Most campers in black bear country never see a bear. Seeing one is proof that we still have extensive enough forests for this wide-ranging animal. Keeping a clean camp helps to insulate bears from the effects of our increasing use of the Forest for recreation and helps prevent bears from being needlessly relocated or killed as nuisances.