Grizzly encounters a growing concern for Fremont County residents

ASHTON — Grizzly bear activity in Fremont County has some residents and business owners worried about their safety.

Several Fremont County residents are reporting multiple instances of grizzly bears getting into their yards or businesses in the last two months. The residents believe Yellowstone National Park is overpopulated with bears this year, and the animals are running out of places to find food.

Ashton native Tara Atchley said a family of grizzlies recently entered her yard to feed on a fruit tree.

“We had come home, and they had torn this tree up right here,” Atchley said.

Atchley said she knew the grizzlies were about, but didn’t actually see any until a family of bears made there way to her front porch.

“He was just on the front porch here, and he has cubs, you know, so when I looked out the window and saw him, I was just very scared,” Atchley said.

The incident was one of a number of grizzly/human encounters that have been reported this summer.

“We’ve got grizzlies getting into everything from seed spuds in the fields outside of Ashton, to apple trees in people’s yards,” Idaho Fish and Game Senior Conservation Officer Charlie Anderson said in a news release.

In August, a Yellowstone National Park worker was killed by a grizzly bear.

Last month, an Idaho Falls elk hunter survived a grizzly attack in Island Park and a 25-year-old grizzly was euthanized by Idaho Fish and Game for getting into Island Park buildings to eat human food. Just this weekend a young grizzly bear was killed on a highway near Ashton.

But despite these incidents, Fish and Game officials say this type of bear activity isn’t unheard of, especially leading up to bear’s hibernation period.

“This is not a new phenomena by any stretch,” Fish and Game spokesman Gregg Losinski said, “These bears have passed on this knowledge for generations of either the spuds that are in the field, or even before, that the apple trees that were in the orchards by the homes.”

Still, residents are wary of bear activity so close to their homes. Ashton resident Whitney Oberhansley says there were obvious piles of bear droppings in her yard. Oberhansley set up a trail camera in her yard, and learned the bears were grizzlies.

Losinski said there isn’t much that can be done if a bear makes it way to a farm, although bears typically don’t associate crops as a human food source.

Locals can take steps to repel bears from residential areas by covering garbage cans, and getting rid of natural food sources like fruit from their yards, officials said.

Action is taken when a bear is habitually eating human food and forming a pattern of revisiting populated locations. Losinski said the last resort is to euthanize the bear.

Atchley has taken preventative measures by picking all the fruit off of her plum tree. So far, the bears haven’t been back.