Wildlife officials are investigating after finding a woman’s body near Yellowstone National Park.
According to Montana’s Fish, Wildlife & Parks Department, the hiker was found dead on a trail about eight miles west of West Yellowstone in Custer Gallatin National Forest.
The woman’s injuries are consistent with a bear attack. Nearby they found adult grizzly tracks and at least one set of cub tracks. Officials believe the woman was hiking alone and not carrying bear spray.
Officials have issued an emergency closure of the area as they investigate and try to locate the bear.
Monata’s FWP released these reminders for anyone in brown bear territory.
- Carry bear spray and be prepared to use it immediately.
- Travel in groups whenever possible and make noise, which can help alert bears to your presence.
- Stay away from animal carcasses, which often attract bears.
- Follow food storage orders from the applicable land management agency.
- If you encounter a bear, never approach it. Leave the area when it is safe to do so.
- Keep garbage, bird feeders, pet food and other attractants put away in a secure building. Keep garbage in a secure building until the day it is collected. Certified bear-resistant garbage containers are available in many areas.
- Never feed wildlife. Bears that become food conditioned lose their natural foraging behavior and pose threats to human safety. It is illegal to feed bears in Montana.
Learn more about bear safety.
Every year it is the same story, someone is attacked or killed by grizzly bear. Mothers with cubs want to protect them. Humans are always in the wrong place at the right time. Bears remember hunters, trappers, googlimng tourists and moronic thrill seekers with giddy laughs and cameras with no regard for the animals and their needs. Media hype makes money on media. Stupid, ignorant, self serving people cause the death of animals that live there. The bear that had cubs and encountered a STUPID IGNORANT woman “hiking” in the woods can only think that person will harm her cubs. Now the IGNORANT woman is dead, had no bear spray AND now “park Rangers” will hunt down the bear and kill her and have motherless cubs because of an ignorant, thrill seeker hiker who couldn’care less about the bear and her cubs, only her own “enjoyment” parading around where the bear has to live and survive. Do people like strangers walking through their homes and doing whatever they want, laughing, yelling, acting stupid and making lots of noise? Maybe, because people are more ignorant and stupid and self serving than ever in history, thinking they can break any rule, law, or violate anything they want and hire an attorney to release them from any responsibility and usually get their way! So, If I ran the parks , I would close down 3/4 of all parks, contain all the stupid people and limit their access to protect the wildlife. Anyone caught violating or poaching, hunting, trapping, causing harm to any wildlife would start at 5 years in prison, $200,000 dollar fine and be banned from any legal access to any park for life. If caught again, it doubles. Cheap thrill seekers don’t belong in any parks as they are a danger to the animals or people, causing them to be killed needlessly. Tickets, hunting licenses all make revenue for the government, hunter/trapper types but what is it doing for the animals and wildlife? The Indian Native people only killed what they needed for food and clothing. The white men killed just to kill, greed and thrill seekers decimated buffalo and other animals and brought hoof and mouth disease from Europe, killing the buffalo that were left that the whites didn’t slaughter for target practice. I worked 6 months full time with 40 lions and saw the idiotic, stupid, moronic things people do around animals with no regard for the animals, only for their egos and weird curiousity that endangered themselves, the animals and DEFIED every warning! Just like this woman hiking, defied warnings, couldn’t care less. Now she is dead, they probably killed the mother bear who feared of protecting her babies. Do I feel sorry for the woman? No, I feel sorry for the bear trying to do what she knows to protect her babies, not knowing what IGNORANT STUPID people will do. If you see a person standing next to you on a street corner and cars are coming and you say be careful, don’t step out in the street and they do it deliberately and get killed, do I feel sorry for that person?No, they DELIBERATELY made a choice to do that, they were warned, they made a choice, they ignored COMMON SENCE! Now they are dead BUT their IGNORANCE causes harm to OTHERS! Animal or human! Many people are ignorant, dangerous and cause harm to others or animals.
We don’t own these animals, they are not “property”, they are alive, have feelings, mate to carry on their species, fight for territory, suffer to fing food, fight to raise their young and survive. Having googling tourists, hunters, poachers, trappers crawling all over the place they have to live is destructive and counters any “Wildlife Protection” scheme that doesn’t seem to be working. Zoos are the best places for most people, most of the animals in them are protected from the people with fences, glass, gates, doors, lockouts to keep animals protected from humans and their unending ignorance.