[Bernardo]

.625 deaths per year for the current 1,500 bears times 13.33% (200/1500) yields .83 deaths per decade. So I'll revise my previous estimate from several per decade to about one every ten years or so. Whether that's ok or not, I haven't commented. I find statistics plenty useful for framing a discussion like this. I also recognize that these are just rough estimates, but if we do put grizzlies into the environment, eventually someone will be killed because of that decision.

[Chief Joseph]

My Mom told me a story tonight about when they first reintroduced Grizzly's here in N Idaho, that they would take old horses who were no longer useful, tie them to trees in the woods and leave them for the bears. Not sure of the authenticity of this story, but if it's true that's just sad and wrong.

[Humptulips]

That surely sounds like an old Moms tale. I was not aware that grizzlies were ever introduced to ID. They have always been present as far as I know.

[Humptulips]

[hikersarenumber1]

There was one tourist charge by a grizzly and it killed her little dog just outside of GNP the summer I spent there. There was also a family struck by lightning, none of them died. Two employees of the main concessionaire died falling while hiking/climbing in separate incidences. A tourist fell off the highline trail and was killed when it was not yet melted out and still closed. A woman pushed her husband off a cliff and he died... There were no deaths attributed bear attacks that summer, and I think no more deaths although I could be missing one. The most common cause of death in Glacier is drowning, followed by heart attacks. This is a very populated park with a healthy grizzly population...

[RumiDude]

[drm]

[Humptulips]

[RumiDude]

[Schroder]

There were 2 attacks just outside Yellowstone when we were there in September. In one attack, 3 campers were mauled and one died. A Bozeman couple were also attacked just North of the park.

[RumiDude]

[Tom]

Maybe Schroder is referring to this? Looks like 2010. According to this headline deaths from grizzly attacks in the Northern Rockies are averaging more than 1 per year since 2010, although I'm not sure how accurate that is.

[Bernardo]

And if there are only 1,500 bears, one death per year is a pretty high lethality rate. Grizzly bears are a least 200 times more dangerous than black bears given that there are at least 300,000 black bears in the continental U.S. One grizzly encounter, is more dangerous than 200 black bear encounters. This number could be even understated because black bears generally live closer to people and may have many more encounters per bear. It's not irrational to be concerned about an encounter with a grizzly if you are likely to have such an encounter. Statistics based on people driving through a park are meaningless. What matters is the outcome of encounters in a wilderness setting. What percentage of the time does a grizzly encounter in the wilderness lead to an attack? If 1,400 of the 1,500 grizzlies in the continental U.S. have no encounters in a given year, then 1℅ of the remaining bears are killing someone every year. Filling in the details on these type of numbers would be much more interesting than talking about lightning. Very likely the only real way to avoid fatalities, is to avoid encounters and the only way to avoid encounters is through voluntary or non-voluntary restrictions.

[hikersarenumber1]

[Bernardo]

You are lucky you didn't see a bear while hiking given how dangerous they are! Just kidding. My point is really that grizzlies are very dangerous animals. There are relatively few deaths, because there aren't that many encounters, not because they are docile. There are only 1,500 in the U.S. yet they kill someone every year. That's a very dangerous animal. You may be ok with that, but I don't think we should downplay how dangerous they are.