A banner year for whitebark pine cones
There is good news for hungry grizzly bears.
Yellowstone National Park officials report a good crop of whitebark pine cones, which is one of grizzly bears’ favorite foods. In years of high cone production, bears tend to stay up at higher elevations longer. That generally results in fewer bear-human encounters at lower elevations of the park.
According to park biologists, the ecosystem-wide average whitebark pine cone production from 1980 to 2017 is 16 cones per tree.
The park averaged 42 cones per tree this year. It is the fourth year in a row with above or slightly above-average cone production.
Cone production averaged 19 cones per tree in 2017, 29 per tree in 2016, and 19.5 cones per tree in 2015.
