Stoner Bears

“Stoner Bears

Watch out for stoner bears in Yellowstone... Posted: Jun 17, 2004 12:28 AM From the Bozeman Daily Chronical

A ###-munching grizzly bear with a history of belly-flopping on tents in Yellowstone National Park likely has a short future in the wild.

The 332-pound, 5-year-old bear has been captured, marked and released so rangers can tell if he reverts any of his old tricks again.

Unfortunately, the bear has earned some food rewards from his behavior. That, coupled with his apparent lack of fear of humans, means that if he pulls any more stunts, he'll likely be killed or sent to a zoo.

For the past two summers, the bear has been pouncing on tents both in front country and backcountry campsites in the northern reaches of Yellowstone, park grizzly specialist Kerry Gunther said Tuesday.

In most cases, the bear got no food rewards.

But in one incident, he might have gotten more than he bargained for. The tent contained some ### and some candy.

"There was one where he got ### and something like Skittles or gummy bears or something," Gunther said. There wasn't much ### in the tent "but it looked like the bear did eat some."

In a case last summer, campers at the Slough Creek campground had a video camera and captured images of the assault on their tent.

"The bear just did a belly flop on the tent and walked away," Gunther said. "It looked like he was having fun."

The bear also has learned to paw through untended saddle bags and backpacks, he said.

Rangers had tried unsuccessfully for two years to capture him.

"He's a hit and run kind of guy," Gunther said.

But they finally caught up with him May 24 in the Soda Butte Creek area.

Distinctive because of some light coloring on his hind quarters and an unusually long tail, officials are pretty sure he's the same animal they've been looking for.

He'll be easy to identify in the future. He's been fitted with red ear tags and a GPS radio collar wrapped in bright yellow ribbon.

Since the capture, a pilot spotted the bear between two buildings in Cooke City, eating garbage, Gunther said, and the bear is now in the backcountry.

Residents in that town northeast of the park have seen him often enough to bestow a nickname. They call him Thumper, Gunther said, while Park Service officials usually call him "the long-tailed bear."

The bear has never injured anybody, but since people have allowed him to get food rewards -- the people who left the ### and candy in their tent were ticketed, Gunther said -- park officials have little choice but to remove him if he comes into contact with people again.

"He's definitely food-conditioned and he's acclimated" to people, Gunther said. "It's a bad combination."

It's both illegal and dangerous to leave food where a bear can get it, the Park Service reiterated Tuesday. "Human foods are the chief culprit in the creation of problem bears and can lead to their becoming increasingly aggressive, requiring their destruction or removal from the area."

This isn't the first time in Yellowstone a bear has taken to crashing tents.

A few years ago, Gunther captured a bear with similar habits. That one had been nicknamed Kelty, after the popular brand of tents, and eluded capture until Gunther found the right enticement.

"I baited him in with a tent," Gunther recalled”

“Maybe I'm slow, but what are the ###s?”

“Does Matt block out slang for weed?”

“Testing...

marijuana”

“hmm..”

“I copied and pasted this story from another website that has a manic filter that bleeps out some of the silliest words!! Just use your imagination I guess.”

“A $h!t-eatin' bear?”

“That's funny. Despite the threads title I still read the first line thinking it said "A @ss-munching grizzly...."”

“These thread titles will start to play tricks with your mind after a while -- LOL”

“i know one stoner bear

and they dont call him Smokey for nothing”

“Im starting to think that the bear aint the only one thats stoned!8o)”

“A stoned bear is not unheard of. Back in the '70s, my parents were car-camping in the Canadian Rockies with their cat. They had a great big bag of dry catfood with them, and they buried the ziplock bag of Mary Jane they had with them at the very bottom of the catfood bag for when they were crossing the Canadian border, just in case they were randomly searched.

They got to their campsite, and pitched their tent. Then a grizzly bear came into their campsite. They retreated into their tent and watched as the grizzly bear climbed into the backseat of their '66 Dodge Dart Convertable . . . and proceeded to eat the entire bag of dry catfood, Mary Jane and all. They were wondering just what a stoned grizzly bear was going to be like. As it turned out, the bear eventually left the campsite and appeared unaffected. Grizzly bears probably have too much body weight to be affected by eating a small amount of pot.

The poor cat, incidentally, had been tied to a tree. This cat had a tendency to hiss at various critters it encountered on these camping trips, but it wisely chose to remain very quiet when this particular critter was in the campsite. Smart cat.”