by Madison Dapcevich
As mountainsides in Greater Yellowstone turn to fiery autumnal hues of red, orange and yellow in early September, hunters take to the backcountry in hopes of calling in an elk during archery hunting season. In 2021, conservationist and hunter Sam Lundgren found himself moving quietly through the timber near the Gallatin Range with an elk call in his mouth.
Spotting something in a tree stand roughly 20 yards ahead of him, Lundgren continued his call as he slowly nocked an arrow on his bowstring. He thought the dark shape rustling in the trees was a bull elk until a black bear stalked around a spruce tree and “just kept coming.”
“I could have scared the animal off, but I had a bear tag in my pocket,” the avid outdoorsman said. “And as it got close enough, I had to make a decision. It was about eight or nine yards ahead of me, and when it lifted its head, I put an arrow in its chest.”
For Lundgren, it was apparent that the bear he faced was a black bear, although other hunters in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have been unsure in similar situations, and have made mistakes.
Roughly 85 percent of all documented grizzly bear deaths are human-caused, according to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, a group of scientists and biologists responsible for long-term grizzly bear monitoring and research, and whose future remains uncertain. And as spring black bear hunting season continues in parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho through spring, experts warn of potential upticks in grizzly bears being killed by hunters over mistaken identity.
IGBST biologist Matthew Gould said Greater Yellowstone mortality data have been tracked in annual reports since 1987. Between 2010 and 2022, Gould’s group documented 15 mistaken-identity mortalities of grizzly bears within the Demographic Monitoring Area and four outside it, despite their federal protection in all of the Lower 48 states.
“The DMA represents the area where the IGBST monitors abundance, mortality rates and demographic recovery criteria,” said Gould, adding that the DMA wasn’t established until 2012.
Currently, black bear hunters in all three states can pass an online bear identification test to prevent mistaken kills. This is required for Montana and Idaho hunters, but it is still optional for those in Wyoming.
“Any hunter I know would look down upon mistaking a black bear for a grizzly, and that casts the rest of us in a bad light, and as a community, we need to do better.”
– Sam Lundgren, hunter, conservationist
Last year, at least three grizzly bears were killed in Montana over mistaken identity. In Idaho, a hunter was cleared of responsibility for killing a grizzly at a black bear site. While hunting is illegal in all national parks, two years ago, a man shot a 530-pound grizzly just outside of Yellowstone National Park, saying he mistook it for a black bear.
To an experienced outdoorsperson, black bears and grizzlies have distinctive features, including a concave, dish-shaped face and large hump between their shoulder blades.
“Black bears and grizzlies are much different, but at the same time, they have what people typically call ‘color phase’ black bears – but it’s not just a face,” Lundgren said. “These bears are just red or blond their whole life, it’s a color morph, really.”
The two species also have different head shapes, body profiles and gaits. But that doesn’t mean the identities are unmistakable.
Chris Servheen, former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator who now leads the nonprofit conservation group Montana Wildlife Federation, said that despite noticeable differences, differentiating between grizzly and black bears can be challenging, which could explain these instances of mistaken identity.
“Grizzly bears and black bears can be difficult to tell apart, especially in the field in poor light, when the bear is partially hidden in brush, when the bear is wet, or when it is running away,” Servheen said. “Color and size are not indicators of species. Many people including me have seen bears that we could not tell what species it was because of these factors.”
Ultimately, however, the responsibility lies with the person holding the rifle.
“You don’t shoot until you can confirm,” Lundgren said. “And if you can’t confirm then you don’t pull the trigger.”
With black bear hunting, there’s a much higher necessity for identification in general, not only because of range overlap with grizzlies, but also because regulations prohibit hunters from shooting a black bear sow with cubs. Male and female identification is not as apparent as it is for other species like elk.
Typically, “spot bear” hunting involves getting to a high point of a basin or ridge line and, in Lundgren’s experience, identification requires long periods of observation to see which direction the bear might urinate or the shape of its rump.
“You have to sit there and look at the bear for a long time, and there are not a lot of situations, I think, where you would just be taking a snap shot unless it was a situation of self-defense,” Lundgren said. “Any hunter I know would look down upon mistaking a black bear for a grizzly, and that casts the rest of us in a bad light, and as a community, we need to do better.”
Though two separate species, black bears and grizzlies share much of the same habitat, travel the same routes, and are attracted to similar foods. This can pose an issue in states like Wyoming and Idaho, which still allow bait hunting in areas where grizzly bear populations are recovering.
“Color and size are not indicators of species. Many people including me have seen bears that we could not tell what species it was because of these factors.”
– Chris Servheen, former grizzly recovery coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
“When you have states that allow black bear baiting, these sites are going to attract either a black bear or a grizzly bear,” said Mary Cochenour, senior attorney of the Earthjustice Northern Rockies Office.
“People are getting comfortable being in areas that are not known to have grizzly bears, but grizzlies are expanding and connecting their recovery zones between the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. They’re expanding into territories that are their traditional habitats,” Cochenour said, adding that this creates greater potential for cases of mistaken identity.
“And these are only the cases that we know about.”
Mortality numbers by themselves do not necessarily present a full picture of population dynamics, according to Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee Executive Coordinator David Diamond.
“As bears move into more human-dominated areas, more conflicts may actually be correlated with more bears,” Diamond said.
The Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear population has grown from an estimated 130 bears in 1975, when the Endangered Species Act was enacted, to approximately 1,000 today. Servheen estimates there are also roughly 1,000 black bears in the same region.
Although this increase in grizzly bear numbers is promising, experts agree that grizzlies still face a long road to recovery.
“As far as grizzlies being recovered, their numbers in some areas are sufficient but the ESA also requires that there be ‘adequate regulatory mechanisms in place’ that remain in place after delisting,” Servheen said. “There are not adequate regulatory mechanisms in place at this time.”
Wyoming Wildlife Advocates Executive Director Kristin Combs says that even though grizzly populations have increased since their protection listing, they still face threats from climate change, development and other human interference.
“The threats are not diminishing, they’re increasing,” Combs said. “Bears are slowly reproducing — it’s taken us 50 years to just get an estimated 1,000 [grizzly] bears in the GYE. That’s a long time even with protections and mortality levels. We have a long way to go.”
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