Page 1 of 7
Deadly encounters with wild animals
August 28th, 2010
Crouched on a dirt trail in the fetal position, Caitlin Adamo felt the saliva roll slowly over
her lips.
Her legs went numb.
Sweat dripped from her forehead onto the 35-millimeter camera her mother recently had
bought her to help with an independent study at school — the camera that now held proof
of her incredulous story.
That is, if she lived to tell it.
Moments before, Adamo, then 18, had been descending leisurely down the Suce Creek
Trail in Paradise Valley with classmates Madaleine Weber and Melissa Davaz.
It was a Tuesday, June 7, 2006, and the three had recently graduated from high school.
Page 2 of 7
After hiking a couple of miles, they decided to turn back — it was nearly 1 in the
afternoon, and Adamo was expected at a job interview at 3 p.m.
All three girls had grown up in Montana and knew to keep their voices elevated and
constant so as to notify any lurking bears of their presence.
Still, they never actually thought they would see one.
But when they crossed the creek for the third time, Weber heard a heavy commotion in
the vegetation 50 feet ahead, turned, and alerted her friends.
"Holy (crap) it's a bear!'" Adamo remembered her friend saying.
Then Adamo and Davaz made a decision she called "our biggest mistake."
They sprung for their cameras.
Through the viewfinder, Adamo made eye contact with the grizzly. She pressed her
finger on the shutter release just as she realized the animal was coming toward them.
"I told my friends to get down and play dead," she said, recalling a bear safety lesson
from elementary school.
They dropped single-file into the fetal position, covering their necks with clasped hands
— with Davaz in front, Adamo in the middle and Weber in the rear.
The bear crashed through vegetation, its thundering steps growing louder as Adamo
squeezed her eyes shut.
Page 3 of 7
Give 'em room
The equation is simple enough: wildlife plus distance equals safety. Adamo said she and
Davaz hadn't abided by the rules when they confronted the grizzly with their cameras that
day.
Antagonistic encounters with wildlife such as the one Adamo and her friends experienced
are rare in Montana. But the recent grizzly bear maulings in Yellowstone National Park,
leaving two people dead and two seriously injured, have unleashed a fury of concerns.
Those who decide to take advantage of the state's access to wilderness are bound to run
into one of its residents sooner or later. And when that time comes — whether it's a bear,
moose, mountain lion, wolf or even a bison — it's a good idea to be prepared.
Death by wild animal? Not likely
Contrary to what some might think, the chances of being killed by a wild animal in
Montana are pretty low.
"You're more likely to be killed by a falling vending machine than a grizzly bear," said
John Waller, a wildlife biologist with Glacier National Park.
Bear-caused human injuries in the park are actually declining, Waller said. Over the last
10 years, the long-term average has gone from two to less than two per year. Glacier has
seen only 10 fatalities since 1910, which works out to one per decade.
As for other wild animals, Waller said he couldn't think of any injuries caused by animals
other than bears in the eight years he has worked for the park.
Page 4 of 7
However, wildlife encounters are quite frequent, as they are often Glacier and
Yellowstone's biggest attractions.
Waller said there are more than 1,000 reports of bear encounters each year, out of
millions of park visitors, not including the numerous encounters that go unreported. Only
a small fraction of those reports, he said, are antagonistic encounters.
Bears have little interest in being around people, according to Chuck Bartlebaugh,
founder and director of the Center for Wildlife Information, a nonprofit group based in
Missoula whose mission is to reduce human/wildlife conflicts.
"I've observed bears over and over again working hard to avoid people," he said.
Waller added that bears do not intend to kill people. Sometimes, they just want to teach
their intruders a lesson.
"Most people in bear attacks end up walking out, going to the hospital, getting stitches
and have a good story to tell," Waller said.
Still, wildlife is unpredictable, and each species displays unique behaviors based on its
instincts and adaptation.
Bears, for example, are omnivores and scavengers and generally attack only when
surprised, protecting a food source or their young.
"Mountain lions are a different creature," said Andrea Jones, a spokesperson for Montana
Fish, Wildlife & Parks' Region 3 office, which extends to Yellowstone. "They are
primarily a predator, so they do seek out prey like elk and deer."
Unless you are a small child or a dog, humans don't have much to worry about when it
comes to the stealthy cat.
Moose are also protective of their young, as Billings couple Ron and Nadine Steel
discovered while out for a walk in September 2008 near their cabin in Red Lodge.
A large female moose and her calf were hidden behind a pine tree in a neighbors' yard.
When the Steels walked past, the cow charged Ron, knocking him to the ground. He lay
on his back, dodging her giant hooves.
Nadine swung their golden retriever's leash at the moose, which only initiated an interest
in her. Nadine was forced to the ground and trampled. Ron pulled himself off of the
ground and headed toward the moose, which turned on him again, then ran off.
Ron speculates the moose was upset that they had entered its territory during the rut, or
mating season.
Page 5 of 7
"We had seen it all summer long and never had any encounters," he said. "That day we
were probably too close, but we didn't see it."
Other than a coat, which Ron swiped across the moose's face, and a dog leash, the Steels
had nothing with which to defend themselves.
Nadine ended up in the emergency room with a three-inch gash behind her ear and a
concussion, while Ron escaped with just two black-and-blue hoof prints on his chest.
"If it had just been one of us, we'd have been dead," Ron said.
The blame game: bears vs. humans
On a Wednesday afternoon at Missoula's Break Espresso, Bartlebaugh has taken over the
largest table in the popular cafe. Spread amongst the bear-clad brochures and
photocopied news articles detailing gruesome maulings are large pieces of lined paper.
Typed or written inside the tiny lines are names, cause of death, details about the
individual's probable actions and a description of the bear and its behavior.
Bartlebaugh and his team have been charting human/bear encounters for more than 30
years, and what has emerged are clear patterns showing human reaction as the problem in
most bear attacks and fatalities.
"It's not that it's a bad bear or a predatory bear," he said. "Often we hear 'Bear attacks
people,' but maybe the article should read, 'Mother bear defends cubs from intruding
hikers.'"
While most biologists assess what bears are doing to instigate attacks, Bartlebaugh's
charting is meant to find out what the public is doing.
"If we can get what people are doing and limit it, the confrontations would be greatly
reduced," he said.
He believes part of the problem is the media, which teaches the public it's OK to interact
with and feed wild animals, conveying the message that the value of wildlife isn't in them
being wild, but how humans can interact with them and force them to do things.
Animals have a hard time earning a living, Bartlebaugh said, so when we interfere we
make it harder for them. This, in turn, creates potentially dangerous situations for
humans.
In the recent situation at the Soda Butte Campground near Yellowstone, he believes the
bear was scouting for food. While the campers and bear were not at fault, a third party
may have fed the bear, leading to the maulings.
Page 6 of 7
"Wildlife plus distance clearly provides safety for both animals and people," Bartlebaugh
said.
Show respect
When Jack Hanna enters the wilderness, he comes prepared. The famed zookeeper and
TV host never leaves home without his bear spray, and recently he decided to share this
knowledge with the public in a Public Service Announcement for the National Park
Service about the deterrent.
Ironically, Hanna, who owns a home in Bigfork, had to put his advice to use the day
before production on the PSA wrapped in Florida.
Hanna and his wife Suzi departed the Grinnell Glacier trailhead at 2 p.m., which
according to Hanna, is much too late when in bear country. They arrived at Grinnell at
5:30 p.m., and retreated 30 minutes later. As they came around a blind corner, they ran
into a young woman who said there were bears on the trail. The path plunges 500 feet on
one side, while the other side is a sheer wall. Hanna knew the bear would need space to
pass, but there was nowhere to go but backward.
He told his wife and others on the trail to get behind him and press against a wall up a
steep slope 30 feet from the trail — soon, a female grizzly and her two yearlings walked
by. At first, they didn't seem bothered, until Suzi decided to take a picture. One of the
younger bears stopped, bristled, looked at the group above him, and started toward them.
"I said to myself, 'Oh Lord, uh oh,'" Hanna said in a phone interview last week. He shot a
blast of bear spray, but it didn't seem to faze the animal. He shot another blast from 10 or
15 feet away. The bear turned and ran off.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to bears is not giving them
space, Hanna said.
"Never cross into their space," he said. "If you see them alert, they look at you, you've
crossed into their space."
Bartlebaugh said to watch out for diggings, claw marks on trees, scat, rocks or logs that
have been rolled over. If you come to a narrow bend or blind spot on the trail, pause and
study it before walking ahead. If you are near a waterfall or fast water, note that the
animal might not hear you approach.
Remember to make noise and wear minimal cosmetics and nonscented deodorant, he
added. Make sure the bear is able to hear, smell and see you as a human.
"Give the animal respect," Hanna said. "That's their home. Respect what they do and
what they are."
Page 7 of 7
 The grizzly bluff-charged Adamo, Davaz and Weber at full speed, at one time jumping
over them as they clenched one another's elbows and knees. After some heavy moaning,
panting and a peculiar howling, the bear retreated.
In the two hours she spent in the same position "playing dead," Adamo prayed for a
ranger to find them. She pictured the letters her parents would send to St. Michael's
College in Vermont, to which she had recently been accepted, to notify the school of their
daughter's death. And she held back the need to vomit for fear the bear might smell it.
The forest went silent for a long time.
The girls whispered to one another, and slowly began standing upright again, brushing
off the insects that had been exploring their skin and clothing.
They made their way back down the trail to the car, shaky, dehydrated and exhausted.
Adamo, now 22, landed the job and went on to finish at St. Michael's, majoring in
psychology. The bear encounter has made her more alert when hiking, and more aware of
the protocol for survival.
"I really try in general not to live life fear-based," Adamo said. "I'm so glad I'm a
Montana native, and I know how to handle experiences. (It's about) stepping back and, if
you're not big enough, then play dead. Surrender to that."