The long-debated idea that Kodiak brown bears -- the biggest of North America's grizzlies -- come running to the sounds of gunshots hoping to grab an unlucky Alaska hunter's Sitka blacktail deer could have a new twist based on preliminary results from a study out of Montana.
Maybe the bears don't come running at the sound of gunfire. Maybe they are lurking nearby all along, dogging the trails of hunters and hoping for scraps.
Montana researchers say they now have evidence grizzly bears in that state follow elk hunters hoping to scavenge their kills. Or at least that's what one bear fitted with a GPS-tracking collar did.
The behavior popped up after researchers fitted 100 cooperating hunters and eight bears with GPS units, the Billings Gazette reported. This is what the scientists found:
"As one group of hunters left a parking area at around 6 a.m. they turned on their GPS. As they moved around a lake in search of elk, a nearby GPS-collared grizzly starts moving in the same direction behind and to the side of the hunters -- probably downwind of them. At one point, the bear is within about 100 yards of the hunters, who never knew it was there.
"After bedding down around noon, the bear picks up the hunters' now-cold trail and follows them again, possibly hoping they would shoot an elk. Even though the human route was now hours old, a bear would have no problem following the hunters," the Gazette reported.
New grizzly research
After nearly being driven to extinction in the Lower 48, grizzlies were for some time thought to be creatures of the wild that only lived far from humans. That view has changed over the years, but the idea that human hunters might share some sort of symbiotic relationship with scavenging grizzlies is something new.
But then, a lot of new things about grizzlies have been learned in the last couple of decades.
That some of these supposedly wilderness animals are comfortable near and around large numbers of people was well illustrated in the Anchorage-area work by Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Sean Farley. His radio-tracking studies discovered grizzlies went nearly everywhere but downtown in Alaska's largest city.
They usually moved unnoticed through greenbelts, almost always looking for food.
Farley bear No. 211 lived 15 years in and around Anchorage before it was hit and killed by a motorist on the Seward Highway near Cal Worthington Ford at 4 a.m. in August 2008. During daylight hours, that main arterial into downtown is one of the busiest roads in the city.
That bear happened to be crossing the road while using the cover of the Chester Creek greenbelt to explore the city in the early-morning hours.
Farley said the bear appeared to have spent much of its life close to people but was seldom noticed. Radio collars on other Farley bears documented them bedding down not far off a busy Tour of Anchorage trail in summertime.
And bears using people as a source of food is not uncommon. Once they've obtained food from people, both black and brown bears approach people in an effort to get more.
But until now, no one has cited any evidence of bears shadowing people, hoping to collect edible leftovers.
The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team in Montana started studying bears and hunters in an effort to determine if gut piles create a significant food source for grizzlies and whether that creates a problem.
Chance meetings
That grizzlies are attracted to gut piles is well known. That bears have fantastic noses and can smell food miles away is also well known. That bears are capable of identifying hunters and following them in hopes of finding a gut pile is new.
Whether the behavior is common or uncommon, and whether it increases or decreases the chance of a bad encounter between bears and humans remains to be seen. In the past, bad encounters have often been blamed on chance meetings between bears and people sneaking around in the woods hoping to find other game.
Grizzlies do not take well to surprises, though it is clear not all attacks happen because of a surprise encounter. There seem to be other things going on, too.
Most Alaska bear attacks and shootings in defense of life and property happen in the fall, according to the work of Brigham Young University professor Tom Smith, who started a bear-attack database while working in Alaska.
Biologists suspect that hyperphagia -- a biochemical-driven lust to gorge just before hibernation -- could play a role. Hyperphagia is mentioned in the Gazette as a compounding factor in fall encounters between bears and people.
Kodiak mauling
Earlier this month, a hunter on Kodiak was attacked after a grizzly bear apparently picked up the trail of a dead deer he was dragging back to his boat. Friends on the boat told Michael Snowden they saw him and his son-in-law dragging the deer downhill. They also saw three bears encounter the drag trail of the dead deer and then turn and follow it.
Before long, the bear ran into Snowden and son-in-law Jeff Ostrin, who'd stopped for a break.
""The bear kind of exploded out of the brush. We couldn't even see it coming," Ostrin told Alaska Dispatch News. "It went straight for Mike, and it knocked him down and bit onto his leg and started shaking its head and dragging Mike around on the ground quite a bit."
Ostrin eventually shot and killed the bear. Snowden survived the encounter. There is no way of knowing what the bear was thinking,
But some past autumn encounters appear to been driven by hyperphagia.
So-called "bear whisperer" Timothy Treadwell is believed to have fallen victim to a hyperphagic bear in one of the state's best known and most gruesome bear attacks. Treadwell and his girlfriend were killed and largely eaten by a grizzly in Katmai National Park and Preserve in 2003 that attacked them in their tent.
The attack happened in October, just before hibernation. Treadwell, who'd spent 13 years visiting the park to live with the bears, had never stayed in the area so late into the fall before. Others have noted significant changes in the way friendly bears of summer behaved just before hibernation.
The Montana researchers continue to explore the interactions between hunters and bears.
It could turn out the bears who follow hunters know better than to maul the man or woman who leaves the tasty gut pile. And that could actually make it a good thing to be followed by bears -- or at least a better thing than stumbling into them accidentally.
Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com