A Utah trail runner was bitten by a bear. Here’s what to do if you encounter a bear

A trail runner in Big Cottonwood Canyon was bitten by a black bear Wednesday, the most serious of several bear encounters or sightings in Utah the past couple of weeks.

The man was running in the Mill D North Fork Trail area of the canyon around 1:15 p.m. when he heard a bear in the brush. The bear approached the man, so he backed away and tried to make himself look big, according to Faith Jolley, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources public information officer.

The bear twice bluffed a charge at the man, and as he was backing away, he fell over a log and the bear bit him on the upper arm. He kicked at the bear and was able to escape. The man received puncture wounds to his arm during the incident and drove himself to a hospital to receive medical attention, she said.

DWR conservation officers and biologists responded to the area and used tracking hounds to locate the bear. They found it around 9:45 p.m., and because it had shown aggressive behavior and injured a person, it was euthanized per division policy, according to Jolley. It was an adult female bear.

Bear attacks are very rare, but not unheard of, Jolley said. Since 2017, six bear incidents in Utah have resulted in injuries to people, including the latest one.

Close encounters with bears

On July 18, Wildlife Resources received the report of a black bear sighting in American Fork Canyon. It had visited several campgrounds at Granite Flat, Timpooneke, Salamander Flat and Altamont during a one-week period. The bear had gotten into food and trash at each site and had become habituated to getting food from areas with people. DWR confirmed it was the same bear in each instance because it was recognizable by its now nonworking radio collar, Jolley said. It was a 5-year-old male bear.

The U.S. Forest Service closed the campgrounds while DWR officers attempted to trap the bear. They placed several traps, and the bear was captured last Saturday morning in a walk-in culvert live trap at the Timpooneke Campground. The bear showed little to no fear of humans and had bluff charged officers earlier in the week, she said.

Because the bear had created a high risk public safety threat, it was euthanized, Jolley said.

Also last week, DWR received a report of a black bear that had gotten into trash at a couple of campsites, as well as several dumpsters, at the Soapstone Campground in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest Service during the previous weekend.

Wildlife biologists placed two barrel traps and trail cameras in the area in an attempt to catch the bear. It has eluded them but continued to get into the dumpsters rather than go near the baited traps, Jolley said.

In May, a grizzly bear attacked and seriously injured a hiker in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, according to The Associated Press . The grizzly was one of two that surprised the 35-year-old man from Massachusetts on Signal Mountain. While mauling the hiker, the grizzly bit into his can of bear repellent and was hit with a burst of it, causing the animal to flee. The 35-year-old Massachusetts man, who’d pretended to be dead while he was being bitten, made it to safety and spent a night in the hospital.

Park officials decided to not capture or kill the bear because it might have been trying to protect a cub, AP reported.

How often are bear attacks fatal?

Statistics vary, but black bears have killed at least 61 people in North America since 1900, according to Lynn Rogers, a biologist who has studied wild black bears for more than 50 years and founded the North American Bear Center.

“I used to think black bears were very dangerous, but my thinking evolved in much the same way people have changed their attitudes about gorillas. I now interpret aggressive displays by black bears in terms of their fear rather than mine,” he wrote . “My chances of being killed by a domestic dog, bees or lightning are vastly greater. My chances of being murdered are 60,000 times greater. One of the safest places a person can be is in the woods.”

The most recent fatal bear attack in Utah — and only the second on record — occurred in 2007. Eleven-year-old Samuel Ives was killed after a black bear ripped him from the tent he was sharing with his family in American Fork Canyon. Officials searched for two hours before finding the boy’s body nearly 400 yards from the campsite. The bear was shot and killed the next day after 26 dogs and five houndsmen tracked it down.

Ives’ parents, Rebecca Ives and Kevan Francis, sued the U.S. Forest Service and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, claiming the agencies failed to warn campers of the bear’s presence. The bear had attacked a man earlier at the same campsite. A federal judge awarded the family $1.95 million.

In 1863, Charles Henry Gates, 35, was hunting a grizzly bear that escaped from a trap and mauled him in Blacksmith Fork Canyon in northern Utah. His family placed a new headstone at his gravesite in 2004, according to the Logan Herald Journal .

What to do if you see a black bear

Wildlife Resources offer these safety tips:

• Stand your ground: Never back up, lie down or play dead. Stay calm and give the bear a chance to leave. Prepare to use your bear spray or another deterrent.
• Don’t run away or climb a tree. Black bears are excellent climbers and can run up to 35 mph — you cannot outclimb or outrun them.
• Know bear behavior. If a bear stands up, grunts, moans or makes other sounds, it’s not being aggressive. These are the ways a bear gets a better look or smell and expresses its interest.
• If a black bear attacks, always fight back. And never give up. People have successfully defended themselves with almost anything, including rocks, sticks, backpacks, water bottles, and even their hands and feet.