CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Yellowstone National Park officials trapped and killed a grizzly bear that charged toward a man and ate the food in his pack less than a month after a different grizzly killed a hiker.
Nobody was hurt Saturday when the male grizzly aggressively approached a man, then ran at him near the north shore of Yellowstone Lake. The attack happened while the man was sitting along Storm Point Trail, a 2.3-mile loop trail a few miles from Fishing Bridge.
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The man threw his pack at the grizzly. The bear stopped charging, tore into the pack and ate the food inside.
Park officials said they trapped and euthanized the male bear Monday near the attack location.
"We're pretty sure that he was starting to associate humans with food," Yellowstone spokesman Dan Hottle said Tuesday.
It was the latest in a growing number of run-ins between people and the burgeoning grizzly population in and around Yellowstone. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem nowadays is home to anywhere from 400 to more than 1,000 grizzlies.
On July 6, a female grizzly killed Brian Matayoshi, 57, in the first fatal grizzly mauling inside the park in 25 years.
Matayoshi and his wife came across the sow grizzly while hiking east of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, or about 15 miles north of Saturday's attack. The grizzly charged at them, Matayoshi told his wife to run and the bear mauled Matayoshi.
The grizzly then lifted Marylyn Matayoshi by her daypack and dropped her on the ground but didn't injure her seriously.
The female bear had two 6-month-old cubs. Park officials decided not to pursue, trap and kill the sow grizzly, saying she was behaving naturally in defense of her cubs and was unlikely to cause more problems.
The 4-year-old, 258-pound male grizzly killed Monday had a long history of being chased from developed areas - at least 25 times from Lake Village, Bridge Bay Campground and Fishing Bridge area within the past few years.
"Until this latest incident, it hadn't really been known to charge anybody. This particular incident kind of prompted us to take another look at it," Hottle said.
Whether the grizzly had acquired a taste for human food wasn't known, but the way it apparently associated people with food was reason enough to act, he said.
The bear appeared healthy and had about 15 percent body fat, normal for this time of year.
The man who was charged at called in the attack to park rangers. Park officials didn't have any information about his identity.
They advise visitors not to drop their packs or throw them at bears, which risks exposing the animals to human food and isn't always an effective defense.
"In a lot of cases, that pack might help you. If it's on your back, it might just provide another layer of material," Hottle said.
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