How the deaths of two park employees changed bear management for good

Bears and humans have crossed paths in Glacier National Park since it first opened in 1910 — and long before that. In the park’s early days, it wasn’t unusual for these behemoth mammals to walk right up to visitor vehicles chugging along Going-to-the-Sun Road. Vintage photos depict bears sometimes half crawling over cars or peeking into windows, while drivers offered up bits of food or stood a few yards off, firing away on their cameras. The visitors got the wildlife encounters they came for and the bears were treated to an easy lunch.

But it was hardly an ideal scenario.

It took the deaths of two young women 50 years ago to change everything.

Nineteen-year-olds Michele Koons and Julie Helgeson were mauled to death by two different grizzly bears on the same night — Michele at Trout Lake and Julie, 8 miles away, outside of Glacier Park Chalet.

August 13, 1967 was hence known as the “night of the grizzlies” and inspired Jack Olsen’s book by the same name.

Perhaps more importantly, the tragic passings of the two park employees served as a wake-up call for the National Park Service and spurred a dramatic change in how bears were managed. They realized that a hard line between human food and bears needed to be drawn and that managing human behavior was key to preventing future attacks.

Many of the improvements enacted in the years following the deaths of Julie and Michele remain in effect to this day.

For the families of the victims, the wave of change became the silver lining to their losses.

“It’s always a part of you, it never really goes away. But then it was like, wow something good has come out of this and it makes you happy again,” said Michele’s sister, Teri Culpepper.

Today, when visitors enter the park, they’re given a bear safety pamphlet that encourages them to “enjoy them at a distance” and provides tips to ensure a safe backcountry adventure.

Make noise, travel in a group and be observant, the document urges.

But these things, which we may consider common sense today, weren’t always so universally accepted.

Before the night of the grizzlies, the philosophy of “pack it in, pack it out” didn’t exist — trash was dumped, not only in the backcountry, but near park lodges, such as Glacier Park Chalet, to entertain guests.

Former park ranger Bert Gildart remembers the days when this was common practice.

“The mangers at Glacier Park Chalet were feeding bears up there to attract tourists,” Gildart said. “And at Trout Lake, Trout Lake was the biggest dump you can imagine from people just tossing their garbage into a big pit. (We) loaded up 17 burlap sacks full of garbage and that didn’t begin to take care of the problem.”

Glacier wildlife biologist and bear expert John Waller said feeding bears went against park regulations, but visitors weren’t likely to be punished for it either.

“There was also a blind eye turned to it because people really liked it — it was fun to feed a bear a sandwich out of the window of your car,” he said.

Although it wasn’t until 1967 that the first fatalities occurred, not all human-bear encounters were pleasant.

The first bear attack reported in the park occurred in 1939 and the second didn’t take place until 1956. A total of 10 bear attacks involving 13 individuals were recorded prior to the night of the grizzles. All 10 attacks occurred in backcountry areas — six attacks happened to hiking parties along trails and four occurred at campsites where visitors were mauled in their sleeping bags.

Glacier park ranger David Shea, whose career spanned from 1966 to 2001, said immediately following the night of the grizzlies, rangers were ordered to shoot any bear that came in to feed at garbage dump sites. At the chalet, a total of three bears were killed, including a sow with two cubs. The cubs survived the winter without their mother, but were killed the next year as they were also conditioned to human food.

“It was a very distasteful thing to have to do, but looking back on it, it was a good thing because those bears were very much tied into humans and human garbage,” Shea said. “The first thing that came out of it was good common-sense stuff, like no more purposely putting garbage out to attract bears — that was immediately stopped at the chalet.”

The park service also established a “pack in and pack out” policy where anything taken into the wilderness was also required to be taken back out, Shea explained. Specific campsites were designated in the backcountry, each with areas outlined for sleeping and separate areas for eating. The backcountry, while still wild, was no longer a free-for-all for human visitors. A backcountry permit program was established to limit the numbers of campers, Shea said, which is still in use today. The conversion to bear-proof trash cans throughout the park, which began in 1963, was completed in the mid-70s.

The park also unrolled an aggressive public education program which touted the importance of hiking in groups and carrying bear spray.

Lastly, Glacier revamped their bear management plan — expanding the document from a single page to roughly 50 pages, including guidelines for management activities and bear-handling procedures.

The improvements weren’t just limited to Glacier Park.

“It was a nationwide effort because the night of the grizzlies really drove home the point that food-conditioned bears are dangerous,” Waller added. “Bears are extremely intelligent adaptable animals …. If they learn to associate human presence or human structures with an easy meal, it’s very self reinforcing for them. Sometimes it only takes one good score and they’re hooked.”

In the days following the attacks, cleanup efforts ramped up throughout Glacier, as park staff worked to rid campsites and chalets of any human-generated trash. There was so much waste that helicopters were brought in to assist the effort, Shea said.

But the decision to tidy up the backcountry didn’t go over well everywhere.

In Yellowstone National Park, two scientists, John and Frank Craighead said the cleanup would create more problem bears. They argued that the grizzlies would seek garbage elsewhere, rather than return to natural foods within Yellowstone.

“When the park service said they were closing all these dumps tomorrow, (the Craigheads) said wait a minute, you can’t do that — all these bears won’t have anything to eat,” Waller said. “They didn’t have access to the garbage, but they were used to seeking garbage so they wandered widely and got into trouble in outlying communities. Lots and lots of bears died, which probably precipitated them being listed on the Endangered Species Act.”

Grizzly bears were listed on the Endangered Species Act in 1975.

“In the 1960s bears were not doing very well,” Waller said.

While he was uncertain exactly how many bears roamed Glacier back in those days, Waller said bears are doing much better now — roughly 300 grizzlies call Glacier home today, along with an estimated 600 black bears.

In June of this year, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced that the grizzly population in and around Yellowstone had recovered enough to be delisted. Waller said grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, which includes Glacier, have also met their recovery requirements for a number of years.

“We’ve come a long way since (the night of the grizzlies),” Waller said. “I think we do a pretty good job. In fact, it’s pretty amazing when you figure we’re hitting the 3 million (visitor) mark, 25,000 backcountry nights a year and close to 1,000 bears in the park.”

Since the dual fatalities of 1967, there have been nine reported bear fatalities in Glacier Park — the most recent being 26-year-old Craig Dahl, who was killed May 17, 1998, while hiking near Two Medicine Valley.

“Most of our attacks are from people not making noise on the trail and surprising a bear at close range,” Waller said. “For a grizzly bear, the best defense is a good offense, that’s just how they are. So, if you surprise a bear at close range it’s just going to turn around and thump whatever it was that surprised them.”

When faced with a charging bear, Waller said a simple shout can be enough to throw them off.

“I go, ‘HEY!’ like that, and sometimes just that response can kind of snap it out of their defensive reaction,” he said. “The bear may just turn 90 degrees and take off down the trail or it may not. If you’re carrying bear spray, that would be a good time to use your bear spray.”

If the bear decides to charge, Waller suggested visitors play dead by laying on the ground to protect their chest and abdomen, and cover the back of their head.

“If you have a pack on, leave it on,” he added.

If a bear is off in the distance, Waller recommended hikers make it obvious to the bear that they are human by speaking to the bear in a normal voice and backing away while keeping an eye on the bear.

In the 50 years since the night of the grizzlies, the park’s approach to coexisting with these magnificent but sometimes dangerous creatures has undergone dramatic changes. Managing human behavior has turned out to be a primary tool for managing bears. And while it may diminish photo opportunities, keeping the two groups separate helps keep both alive.

“Right after these maulings I thought, my gosh all the bears in Glacier National Park are not worth the lives of one of these girls,” Gildart said. “But as time went by, I realized these maulings would never occur if there wasn’t the presence of garbage. My mind changed. These animals are absolutely incredible. If people follow the rules that are set down by the park ... you’re better off being in the backcountry of Glacier than driving to Glacier.”