SFGate

Grit triumphs in face of grizzly encounter

Frightening face-off in parking lot at Yellowstone Park

Blaine Harden, New York Times Tuesday, July 2, 2002

As the grizzly approached, taking his sweet time, Abigail Thomas tried to practice good bear etiquette.

She stood still as a tree in her dark gray jogging outfit. She did not look the bear in the eye. She silently told herself, as she later recalled, that if the bear did not feel challenged, he would "leave me alone."

The bear, though, had other ideas.

So it was that on a Sunday morning in late May on a parking lot in Yellowstone National Park, Thomas had a moist and terrifying encounter with a grizzly. The five-minute face-off became painful, she explained in a telephone interview, only after the grizzly released the grip of his jaws, which he had gently clamped on her right thigh.

It was the first time in two years that a grizzly had injured a person in Yellowstone, a park that is home to 400 to 600 grizzlies and is visited by 3 million people a year.

"She was really lucky," said Marsha Karle, a spokeswoman for the park. "We really have very few contacts, considering the number of people and the number of bears."

If startled, separated from their cubs or hurt, grizzlies can attack and kill humans. In Yellowstone, three people were slightly injured by a grizzly in 2000. Grizzlies have killed five people in the park in the last century, with the most recent death in 1986. Across North America a person is killed by a grizzly about once every two years.

In the Rocky Mountain West, the probability of contact between people and grizzlies is rising. An increasing human population is settling in areas where there is a recovering population of grizzlies. The bears have been protected for more than a quarter century by the Endangered Species Act.

Across northwest Montana, children are taught in school how to behave with a grizzly, often by lecturers from the Great Bear Foundation in Missoula, Mont.

The lesson the nonprofit group teaches -- avoid eye contact, avoid sudden movement, never run -- is the gospel that Thomas tried to follow in her Sunday meeting with the bear.

Thomas, 30, is a mail sorter in the Lake Station Post Office in Yellowstone.

She is 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 170 pounds. She has been a veterinary technician in Portland, Ore., and loves animals. But her professional expertise is limited to dogs and cats.

The grizzly she encountered was a "male subadult grizzly," the National Park Service said. He was about 3 years old and probably had separated from his mother in the spring. Based on his age, the bear was about half the size of an adult male and weighed 225 to 250 pounds. Grizzlies at this age are often playful and sometimes insecure because they are away from their mothers for the first time.

When he approached Thomas, he sniffed her right leg. Then he sniffed her hands, which she, in her effort to impersonate a tree, was pressing against her legs.

She tried to talk to the bear. "Hey, bear," she said, in a normal voice, "leave me alone."

Then he sniffed her hands and she drew up her fingers so he would not bite them.

"I wasn't afraid so much he was going to kill me," Thomas said, "as I was worried that he was going to mouth me."

Then, he mouthed her.

"He opened his mouth and he put it around the front portion of my thigh muscle on the right side," she said, noting that when he was finished and drawing back his head, he scraped her skin with his teeth.

This did not draw blood through her jogging pants, but it hurt and scared Thomas.

She yelled, "Leave me alone!"

The grizzly kept sniffing her. Thomas remembers thinking that if he mouthed her again, drawing blood, then he might become more aggressive. She decided to play offense. Slowly, she reached for a water bottle that she carried around her neck.

"He didn't seem impressed by me talking or yelling at him, so that is when I squirted him," she said.

The startled bear walked slowly away. More frightened than injured, Thomas went to a clinic for an examination, which found bruises on her right leg. She had recovered enough by the Tuesday after the encounter, she said, to go jogging -- in an area of Yellowstone with no bears.

Park officials said Thomas was fortunate that water had chased off the grizzly. They recommend that park visitors carry bear pepper spray as a last line of defense. But they praised Thomas for remaining calm.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002

Answers

She's lucky he wasn't horny.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002

Sorry, can't resist (since she made it through ok)...

The Wyoming State Department of Fish and Wildlife is advising hikers, hunters, fishers, and golfers to take extra precautions and keep alert for bears while in the Yellowstone areas.

They advise people to wear noise-producing devices such as little bells on their clothing to alert but not startle the bears unexpectedly. They also advise the carrying of pepper spray in case of an encounter with a bear. It is also a good idea to watch for fresh signs of bear activity.

People should recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear droppings. Black bear droppings are smaller and contain berries and possibly squirrel fur. Grizzly bear droppings have little bells in them and smell like pepper spray.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002

I'm thinking we're being gummed a bit by the economic bear, not sure whether it is going to chomp down hard or ignore us.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002

Thanks for that tidbit, BrookS. Now I have coffee all over my new computer desk, keyboard, and freshly cleaned monitor.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002

Oh not THAT one again!!! Snort!

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002

Git, stop snorting on Barefoot's monitor, you'll get me in trouble again.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 2002