Bear box project aims to protect bears, humans

The saying goes, “A fed bear is a dead bear.” Wildlife groups in the area are pairing up to put a stop to that.

If you’ve been to a campground, bear boxes are probably familiar. They are for campers to store their food while away from the campsite or sleeping.

“The goal is to have people put all of their food and other attractants in some sort of box, vehicle or container that’s fully enclosed and hard-sided,” said Jillian Thornton, a bear education technician for the U.S. Forest Service. “And that way even though the bear can smell what’s in there, it can’t gain access to the food and get a reward.”

Today, 14 bear boxes are going in at the Spring Creek Campground at Hebgen Lake in Montana. The Forest Service says it’s rare to have a box at each campsite like they are doing here. Keeping bears away from the campground keeps them, as well as humans, safer.

“When bears do get food they basically imprint on that area and they will come back over and over and over again,” Thornton said. “So if you let a bear get human food, it starts seeing people as a food source, which, if a bear comes up to you expecting that you have a sandwich cause he got a sandwich in this campsite yesterday, cause someone didn’t store their food, and you don’t have a sandwich he’s maybe probably going to come after you. So the danger to people is huge if you don’t store your food.”

These bear boxes are part of a five-year, $1 million project put on by the U.S. Forest Service and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Together they have put nearly 1,200 bear boxes at 164 campgrounds in five national forests. These boxes were built by Bear Guardian out of Rexburg and brought by Cedar Point Trucking. This group effort is all to protect the bears.

“Our goal at Greater Yellowstone Coalition is to keep bears wild and people safe,” said Chris Colligan, wildlife program coordinator at Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “And a big part of that is having the infrastructure in place so that people can do the right thing, store their food safely, keep bears out of trouble. And so this is the frontline of defense for grizzly bears.”

The U.S. Forest Service and Greater Yellowstone Coalition are putting in about 230 boxes in the Custer Gallatin National Forest this year.