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By Michael
Doyle
The Fresno Bee - October 22, 1998
WASHINGTON - Yosemite's rambunctious 24-hour news bears get special attention
in the massive budget bill signed Wednesday by President Clinton.
At the request of a Yosemite National Park biologist, and with the help of
a Los Angeles, California congressman, the nearly 4,000-page document includes
$500,000 to help park officials prevent bear problems throughout the day.
"It's a widely recognized problem, and not just for Yosemite," park spokesman
Kendell Thompson said Thursday.
The Yosemite bears are undeniably causing a ruckus. Through the end of September,
the park had tallied about $587,000 in property damage caused by the bears
- twice as much damage as was caused only three years ago.
The bad-news bears, lured by food and seduced by constant exposure to humans,
have been implicated in 1,325 incidents since January. These range from breaking
into vehicles - more than 1,000 times - to busting supposedly secure food
lockers.
"This is a record year, and last year was a record year before that," Thompson
said.
Most frightening for park visitors are the three bear assaults on humans this
year. The bears typically were rummaging for food when they were startled
by someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The penalty for the
bears in these three incidents was death - they were repeat offenders.
The persistent female known as Bear No. 2369, for instance, had a history
of breaking into cars in search of food. Park officials moved her away from
Yosemite Valley, like an ex-con being shipped off on parole, but she kept
returning to the scene of her crimes.
"She'd been taught by the mother," Yosemite spokeswoman Christine Coles said.
One July night this year, No. 2369 began gulping food that had been left out
on a picnic table. People tried to scare her away; and in the ruckus, an elderly
woman awoke. She and the bear were equally startled by one another.
The 200-plus-pound bear swiped at her and punctured the woman's hand with
a claw. Park officials captured the bear and euthanized the animal.
The $520 billion spending bill for fiscal 1999 explains that Yosemite "has
a serious bear management problem, and current funding has not been sufficient
to deal with the estimated 600 bears in the park and the 4 million people
who visit the park annually."
Park officials credited Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, with helping land
the money.
To cope, Yosemite employs several strategies that might benefit from the new
money. Seasonal rangers patrol campgrounds and ensure proper food storage.
The park also has a color brochure, loaded with bear facts, that it would
like to republish and distribute.
"We have a requisition form waiting to go," Thompson said. "All we need is
the money."
The money also might help with refurbishing, or replacing, the food lockers
used in park campgrounds.
Bears are smart enough to figure their way into the lockers, but park officials
can't make the lockers too complicated, or else people won't use them.
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