Grizzly attack--the aftermath...article from local newspaper

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Michigan man is second to be killed by a Yellowstone grizzly this summer

CARLY FLANDRO, Bozeman Chronicle Staff Writer | Posted: Tuesday, August 30, 2011

John Wallace was unmistakably a man who loved nature.

On nice days, he often wished aloud that he were someplace hiking, rather than working at the Portage Lake District Library in Houghton, Mich.

But the library had a waterfront view of the Portage Waterway, where several times a week a boat would pass by, carrying tourists to the nearby Isle Royale National Park. Each time Wallace heard the boat’s horn, he would watch it from the library windows until it was out of sight.

“He was longing to be on that boat going back out to Isle Royale,” said Jay Fedorocko, the library’s business manager.

But Wallace, 59, won’t be standing by those windows anymore.

Last week, his body was found along Yellowstone National Park’s Mary Mountain Trail. Park officials confirmed Monday that he was killed by a grizzly bear — marking the second fatal bear attack in Yellowstone this summer.

“Two bear-caused human injuries in a year has become rare, let alone fatal attacks,” said park spokesman Al Nash. “We haven’t seen any significant changes that we could point to that might help us understand why this has occurred.”

Nobody witnessed the attack, so Nash said it’s “just not possible for us to determine why this bear attacked Mr. Wallace.”

Wallace, of Chassell, Mich., a small city in the Upper Penninsula off Lake Superior, was discovered Friday morning by two hikers. He was traveling alone and had pitched a tent at the Canyon Campground sometime Wednesday. Officials believe the attack likely occurred sometime Wednesday or Thursday.

Park officials are setting traps in hopes of catching the grizzly that killed Wallace. If one is caught, the park will analyze its DNA to determine if it was the same bear involved in the attack. At that point, Nash said there would be “a very serious discussion” to determine what to do with the bear.

“We aren’t even there yet,” Nash said.

Local biologists have also been left to guess at what caused this grizzly’s deadly behavior.

“It’s just one of those rare things where we’ll probably never know why,” said Kerry Gunther, a bear management biologist for the park.

He said it’s been a good food year for bears. And besides these fatalities, there has been only one other conflict in the park involving bears. In that case, a grizzly was euthanized for aggressively approaching and charging a man.

Gunther did note, however, that more people are living in and moving to the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, and park visitation has been increasing. Plus, over the past decade, the bear population has increased by about 4 to 7 percent. Currently, about 600 bears live in the ecosystem.

“More bears, more people, more interactions,” Gunther said.

On July 6, 57-year-old Brian Matayoshi was killed by a grizzly sow. He’d been hiking with his wife on the Wapiti Lake trail near Canyon Village when the two happened upon the bear, which was with cubs. Park officials determined the attack was defensive rather than predatory and did not attempt to capture that bear.

Last summer, a sow with three cubs ravaged the Soda Butte Campground near Yellowstone National Park and killed Kevin Kammer of Grand Rapids, Mich. Two others were injured. The bear was captured and euthanized, and its cubs were taken to a zoo.

Kevin Frey, a bear specialist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, also noted that the increasing use of backcountry areas is coinciding with a growing grizzly population.

“The thing we have to admit or realize is that the potential for bear-human encounters is going to increase,” he said. “The situation last year and this year we hope is not a continual thing.”

He and Nash said their respective agencies will continue working to educate the public, but they have not considered changes in policy because of the fatalities.

Outside the park this year, a grizzly bear attacked and injured two hikers in the Deer Creek area near Big Sky, and another grizzly was euthanized in July for “frequenting” a private campground near West Yellowstone.

While those in the Yellowstone area work to understand why this bear attacked, those in Michigan are still shocked by their loss.

Fedorocko said the library where Wallace was a maintenance worker has a small staff of 15. They plan to close the library the day his services are held and are considering the possibility of a memorial garden for Wallace. The garden would go between the building and the waterway.

Fedorocko said he remembers Wallace, who was married with no children, as a man who loved to be in the outdoors, to garden and cook, and who adored his dog. But he said Wallace’s death is still sinking in.

“I can’t believe it’s actually happened,” Fedorocko said. “Somebody I talked to last week is not here and won’t be here again.”