'Crashing and banging': Gardiner residents recount experience with grizzly bear

A nearly 600-pound grizzly bear was euthanized last Thursday after it spent over a month breaking into Gardiner homes and businesses in search of food.

Gardiner wildlife photographer Deby Dixon recounted her encounter with the bear, while Bear Awareness Gardiner organizer Evan Stout emphasized the importance of using preventative measures in Bear Country.

“He continued to get into garbage every single night it seemed like,” Dixon said Monday.

Dixon caught the bear with her Ring camera a couple of times before she saw him in person. Someone had left a bag of garbage next to her locked trash can.

“One morning, about 5:30, I was loading things into my car to go pick up a client for a photography workshop. I heard some crashing and banging. And he was just on the other side of the fence getting into a bag of garbage," said Dixon.

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Before it was killed by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks last week, the bear was notorious around town.

"This is him right here. That's a photo I took years ago, actually out in the national park in Yellowstone. Before he had a lot of the bad habits he developed more recently," said Stout, the organizer of the nonprofit Bear Awareness Gardiner.

A facet of the Northern Plains Resource Council, Bear Awareness Gardiner disperses bear-proof trash cans to Gardiner residents. All of the town's community members are eligible to receive one 64-gallon bear-proof trash can for free for their residence.

Businesses, including short-term rentals, are able to purchase a can with Bear Awareness Gardiner for 50% of the cost of the can.

Stout said the bear was mostly likely lured to town years ago by its apple trees, and just kept coming back.

Deby Dixon

“I always call them the gateway drug to conflict,” Stout added. "If a bear finds some pizza crust and half of a hamburger and some old french fries or something, collectively, that's more calories than he would find in weeks up in the natural landscape."

The bear was spotted in Gardiner in the beginning of June.

"June is a time when natural foods are in abundance. And so we typically don't have as much conflict that time of year," said Stout.

This bear, however, was on a mission.

“This year, in particular, his behavior escalated to trying to break into buildings, he was able to enter a couple buildings, which is really, really scary, broke out some windows, he attempted to enter a few others and was stopped," Stout said.

Brandi Nichols

It's why the nonprofit takes preventative steps so conflicts like this don't happen.

"Part of our program, you know, getting those cans out for free or at a discounted price for businesses is what we're really, really working on right now. We are coming into August here shortly, and that'll be apple season. And so we'll have our volunteers out picking apples and trying to get as many of those apples off the landscape as possible," said Stout.

It's an experience Dixon will never forget.

"To know that they're coming right by your house and to know that, really with a grizzly bear that at large, everything is vulnerable," Dixon said.

The bear carcass was spotted in the Yellowstone River a couple of miles from Yankee Jim Canyon near Corwin Springs on Monday.

Trisha McFarland

According to FWP Region 3 Communication and Education Program Manager Morgan Jacobsen, the bear was killed after wildlife officials followed it into the Yellowstone River near Gardiner.

They removed its head and paws, a requirement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as those limbs have potential monetary value.

The carcass had washed downstream after FWP wasn't able to remove the bear from the river. Jacobsen said the bear will be left for wildlife to pick off.

If you'd like to support Bear Awareness Gardiner, they'll be hosting Brewfest next weekend on July 27.

"Bear Awareness Gardner is the beneficiary of the proceeds of that event. So if you want to come down and have a beer and hear some music and support the work we're doing to try to keep folks and bears safe, all of the proceeds come to us or just go online and buy a ticket," said Stout.