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National Park workers in Wyoming were forced to kill a black bear over “poor decisions” made by visitors who wouldn’t stop feeding the animal, according to authorities.
Grant Teton National Park staff tragically euthanized the bear last Friday after “a concerning pattern of behavior” from both the massive beast and visitors escalated over several days, the park announced in a social media post.
The bear began approaching visitors at Delta Lake — a popular hiking destination in the park’s Glacier Gulch — after repeatedly receiving “human food rewards,” Grand Teton National Park wrote in a statement.
Photos released by the park showed the hulking bear rummaging through drinks, food, and other garbage tourists abandoned in the remote area.
“Park staff increased monitoring in the area and found the bear unusually difficult to haze away, its behavior consistent with conditioning to human foods,” officials said.
The black bear’s increasingly food-conditioned behavior, driven by the leftover tasty morsels, created an “unacceptable safety risk” for visitors.
Staff couldn’t relocate the bear because it had strong ties to its home range, and finding a suitable area with little human activity has become increasingly difficult as more parkgoers flock to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Several hundred black bears and dozens of grizzly bears populate the 310,000- acre wildlife area full of pristine lakes and majestic alpine vistas, according to Grand Teton Wildlife Tours.
“In this case, after considering the bear’s behavior and the circumstances, wildlife managers determined that other options had been exhausted and the bear posed a clear risk to human safety. Lethal removal is always a last resort,” the park wrote.
Wildlife staff darted the bear to immobilize it before euthanizing it and flying it out of the backcountry the next morning.
“We need to be clear—this bear was lethally removed because of poor decisions made by park visitors,” Grand Teton National Park said.
Authorities urged visitors to gather all their belongings, especially their food, if a bear approaches.
“It is everyone’s responsibility to help keep bears wild: Never leave food unattended, even for a moment,” officials wrote. “If you have time to grab your phone, you have time to grab your food.”
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