Grizzly death a necessary step

Inter Lake editorial

Glacier National Park officials are taking some heat, from near and far, over the recent ordered killing of a grizzly bear - but it's nothing compared to the outrage and liability the park might have incurred had the bear been left alone.

If the "Oldman Lake" bear had gone on to maul or kill someone, the term "gross negligence" would come into play. A legal discovery process would reveal lengthy documentation of the 17-year-old bear's history of approaching people and occupied campgrounds with two different sets of cubs.

It also would reveal that because the bear had been determined to be "highly conditioned" to humans, with a tendency to "purposely approach" people, the park had violated its own Bear Management Plan and Guidelines.

This is the most pragmatic reason that the very rare decision by Glacier officials to destroy a grizzly bear was the right thing.

The fact that one of the cubs died after being tranquilized was highly unfortunate - but also highly unintended. Those who doubt it simply aren't familiar with the park personnel involved.

Contrary to the beliefs of many huffing-and-puffing critics of the decision to kill the adult female, Glacier officials have been very restrained, conservative, protective and active in managing the park's grizzly population.

In fact, the bear that was destroyed was afforded unprecedented attention, with special efforts to condition her and her cubs to keep them from approaching humans.

Those efforts, carried out by the Wind River Bear institute in 2005 and 2006, appeared to have been effective.

The female disappeared for the following two years, causing not a peep of trouble.

But when she returned to the same campgrounds this summer with a new set of cubs, demonstrating the same old behaviors, practical considerations came to the forefront: Could the park afford the ongoing costs and risks of monitoring a bear with such a track record? Would the park need to do it again and again in years to come?

The park is not in a position to baby-sit individual bears with troublesome histories when it has limited resources and a responsibility to manage a broad grizzly bear population. Part of that responsibility involves preventing bears from becoming conditioned or habituated in the first place. Enhancing those efforts would be a worthwhile pursuit.

Park bear managers, state bear conflict specialists, and the Wind River Bear Institute have a strong record of success with "aversive conditioning" techniques throughout the Northern Continental Divide grizzly bear recovery area.

Those who fervently want to prevent "management bears' from being killed in the future should support those efforts with their hearts as well as their checkbooks.