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 Monday September 10, 2007
Bears are calling on Island Park
Officers are blaming unsecured food, trash
IslandPark -- Ed and Jennie Andersen didn't worry too much when 20 pounds of dog food disappeared from the bed of their maroon Chevrolet Silverado on Saturday night in IslandPark.
The next morning, the couple found the remains of the bag at their campsite near a cabin along Mortensen Lane.
Only a few kernels of dog food remained sprinkled in the dirt near the couple's truck and trailer.
Maybe a raccoon was responsible, or maybe it was a family of raccoons, they thought.
The Rigby couple knew better than to leave food unsecured in bear country, but the plastic garbage sack somehow slipped their minds.
"For us, we hunt, we know to put stuff up, but we just got lazy and I let my guard down," Jennie Andersen said.
The next night, they settled into their RV camper with their two children, a niece and a Labrador retriever.
A few feet from the trailer, a border collie and a Vizsla breed slumbered outside in a metal kennel.
An empty dog food bowl and nuggets of food rested nearby.
Sometime after 1 a.m. Monday, the dogs started barking.
Ed Andersen swung the door of the trailer open and began to shout.
Jennie Andersen peaked out a window.
In the darkness, they saw a grizzly bear clutching a dog's bowl in one paw.
According to the Andersens, the large bear grunted repeatedly, reared up on two legs, challenged the dogs and rubbed against the trailer and truck.
Eventually, the bear wandered off along a trail away from the campsite, leaving 5-inch wide prints in the dirt.
"I'm still shook up from last night," Jennie Andersen said. "He was huge. I don't ever want to see him again."
Wildlife experts say encounters such as Sunday's are becoming more common and that people and a dry summer season are to blame for a rash of human-bear meetings.
Not an accident
Even at 1:30 in the morning, Idaho Department of Fish and Game conservation officer Josh Koontz only needed a minute to determine why the grizzly barged in on the Andersen's camp.
He noticed the dog food bowl and loose kernels.
That's enough -- a smell to attract the bear and the reward of a free meal.
"When you look at it, most of the time there is a reason we're seeing these bears," Koontz said. "If they don't have a reason to come, they don't."
As often as three or four times a week, Koontz's phone wakes him between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.
It's been like that for four weeks.
And everyone on the other end of the line always says the same thing.
We've got a bear, and we need you to come down here now.
During the past month, Koontz, law enforcement officers and wildlife biologists have taken reports of bear activity in and around IslandPark on a nearly daily basis.
Much of that activity centers on the Mack's Inn area, a popular recreation destination where multiple grizzlies have been spotted near humans, Koontz said.
In mid-August, a sow and her two cubs sliced an unoccupied tent in the Moose Creek area.
Fish and Game officers captured those bruins Aug. 18 and Aug. 19, but tranquility didn't last.
By Aug. 29, another grizzly appeared near Moose Creek.
Discouraged officials are blaming residents of the same neighborhood for both encounters.
"We're a little frustrated right now," bear management educator Lynn Dickerson said. "It hasn't been two weeks, and we're back to having a grizzly problem. Some people still seem to think it's OK to leave their garbage outside."
Huckleberries and pine cones are in short supply and bears are searching anywhere they can to find food to fatten up for winter, Koonz said.
So he and Dickerson spend hours each week warning residents and visitors that any amount of unsecured garbage, food or trash will attract bears.
They warn people about birdfeeders and barbecues and encourage people to stow food in hard-sided vehicles or inside their homes.
But people aren't getting the message.
Last week, Koontz's neighbors hung a handful of birdfeeders from pine trees.
They also left dozens of shelled peanuts scattered haphazardly across the yard.
Koontz said that mess has the potential to create problem bear encounters across the whole neighborhood.
That's the reason why officials are asking FremontCounty commissioners to enact a food storage ordinance that would provide a penalty for leaving food unsecured.
Such an ordinance would govern state and private lands in the county, and it would pair with a similar U.S. Forest Service ordinance that will govern national lands next year.
Without enforcement power, they said, they can do little besides warn people that fed bears often need to be destroyed or removed from the wild.
"I hate to say it, but it's usually totally caused by humans and, unfortunately, it's bears that ultimately pay the price," Dickerson said.
Features writer Clark Corbin can be reached at 542-6761.
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