Keeping Bears Wild — Or Trying — At National Parks

Enlarge this image toggle caption Nathan Rott/NPR Nathan Rott/NPR

There are about 1,600 black bears and roughly 10.7 million people in Great Smoky Mountains National Park every year, and Ryan Williamson is responsible for the safety of both.

Williamson is a wildlife biologist at the park. He's an expert in bear behavior and practically a field medic for wildlife. He can rattle off a list of anesthetizing drug concoctions that would make your tongue twist and your head spin.

But sometimes — usually with a deep, heavy sigh — he plays traffic controller. Recently, he pulled his pickup truck off the side of one of the park's many narrow, shaded roadways and stepped out into a line of congested traffic.

"Keep moving," he says, waving traffic forward. "You got to have all four tires off the road to stop."

In the parlance of the park, this is what's called a "bear jam." Outside of the winter months (when the park's bears are hibernating) it's a regular occurrence at Great Smoky Mountains National Park: A driver sees a bear off the side of the road, stops to take a picture, and the traffic starts to back up like a clot.

It's annoying if you're in a hurry or if you have to manage traffic, but there's an implicit understanding from the park's employees. "This is the highlight of someone's trip," Williamson says. "I want everybody that comes to this park to see a bear."

toggle caption Nathan Rott/NPR

The people lined up on this roadside are seeing a sow black bear and her two tiny cubs, each the size of a football. "This is safe viewing distance, in my opinion," Williamson says. "I say safe viewing distance is as far as you can throw a rock because, you know, we say 50 yards, but John Q. Public has no idea how far 50 yards is."

And even when John Q. Public does, he can't help but get a little closer. He wants to get a better picture or a #bearselfie. It happens.

These bears are what wildlife biologists call habituated bears — ones that don't run when they see or smell people because they've gotten so accustomed to us.

This happens all the time at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and it puts people like Williamson in a tough spot. On one hand, his mission is to provide these types of viewing opportunities to the people that visit the park, and on the other, he has to protect the bears.

Bear Management

Bill Stiver, a wildlife biologist and head of the wildlife division at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, says there are a lot of habituated bears here.

In terms of wildlife management, another classification is wild bears — bears that are afraid and run from humans — and at the other end of the spectrum, food-conditioned bears. From a management standpoint, food-conditioned bears are very hard to manage. "Once that behavior gets ingrained, it's really, really hard to change," Stiver says.

They can move the animal away from the place it's come to identify as a food source, but bears are smart. Stiver says they typically have to move a bear at least 40 miles from the food source or it will find its way back. That's tough to do in a place like Great Smoky Mountains National Park, because it's surrounded by people and towns.

If moving the bear doesn't work, or it's not an option, there's really only one other thing they can do. Stiver says they usually have to do it once or twice a year.

"I don't take any pleasure in euthanizing a bear," he says. "I feel like we fail if we either have to move a bear or we have to euthanize it. Somewhere in that process, we've failed. And I don't mean we as just me. I mean we as people, because we're getting too close to it. We're stripping it of that natural, wild behavior."

toggle caption Nathan Rott/NPR

On the roadside in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, more traffic stops and slows to take pictures of the sow black bear and her two tiny cubs. They've moved closer to the road and the line of whispering, pointing people.

"This is how habituation happens," Williamson says, watching the sow nose a rock aside. "She's just tolerant of us right now." She doesn't even spook when a frustrated motorist honks his horn at the car in front of him. Her two cubs seem oblivious too, as they stumble over downed logs and try to keep pace with their slow-moving mother.

"They're learning right now," Williamson says. They're learning to not be afraid of humans, which puts them on that slippery slope to becoming problem bears. "It's a very difficult window to try to capture, because neither one can behave themselves," he says. Humans can't help but get too close to bears or drop food crumbs on the ground; bears can't help but eat the crumbs.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park tries its best to slow that by educating people. There are signs on the roads telling people to keep their distance from animals and others that explicitly say, "Do not feed the wildlife." But it's impossible to educate nearly 11 million people, so wildlife biologists also try to educate bears.

Back Into The Wild



The Appalachian Bear Rescue is a rescue center for young black bears near Townsend, Tenn., just outside of the Great Smoky Mountains. It's a nonprofit that takes injured and orphaned black bear cubs or yearlings and nurses them back to health.

"Our mission is to get them back to the wild in the shortest possible period of time in captivity as we can," says Dana Dodd, the center's president.

The longer they stay in captivity, the more likely it is they will get used to the people, and Dodd says they can't allow that. It's a tough thing to do, she says, especially with the youngest bear cubs that come in. They're so small and underdeveloped that they can't walk on their own or lap water. "Their neck isn't strong enough to hold up their head, just like a little baby," Dodd says.

toggle caption Courtesy of Appalachian Bear Rescue

Those animals have to be bottle-fed. Dodd describes that as the most dangerous time for the animal, because it has to be in close contact with humans.

"If that cub has to bond and it bonds with a person, it is near certain that cub will not live," Dodd says. "You'll kill it with kindness."

Williamson and the National Park Service come in at the end of this process — the release. That's why Williamson is here. He's picking up two female yearlings that have been nursed back to health and is releasing them back in the park. Both were found in nearby towns before being brought here, so it's fair to say that both are somewhat accustomed to people.

From Williamson's standpoint, the release process is an opportunity to change that.

Snoring bear alert: Listen to a yearling snooze 0:10

He readies a tranquilizing drug concoction and goes to retrieve one of the bears. Every bear that gets released back into the wild goes through a preparation process — sleeping (and snoring) through it.

It gets an ear tag and a GPS collar. Blood tests and skin tests are conducted. These are all done so that biologists can have a better understanding of the bear's health and habits. The GPS collar can alert wildlife biologists that the bear is in a town or a place it shouldn't be.

Williamson and Coy Blair, the head curator at the rescue center, get back with one of the bears in a cage. They carry it into a closed shed with Dodd and a team of veterinarians from the University of Tennessee to get the bear ready as quickly as possible.

Some people think that all I do is punish bears that have bad behavior. Well, yes, but I'm trying to fix that bad behavior. So in my eyes, I'm saving bears, not punishing them.

This process is humane and necessary, but there's no way around it: If you're a bear, this process is not fun. Williamson says that's kind of the point.

"Some people think that all I do is punish bears that have bad behavior," he says. "Well, yes, but I'm trying to fix that bad behavior. So in my eyes, I'm saving bears, not punishing them."

Both of the yearlings are put in metal cages in the back of his truck and are monitored until they're awake. Williamson drives into Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a few miles down a narrow dirt road. He stops near a parked car and calls to a guy who's taking pictures of a nearby creek, asking him to come stand near the truck.

"I want humans to be present so when the bear turns around and looks, sees what just happened, I want them to see us and be like, I don't ever want to experience that again," he says. He wants that bear to associate its negative experience with humans.

Williamson's intern, Brandon Garcia, climbs on to the top of the cage and lifts the metal gate. The black bear yearling stumbles out, pauses to look at the photographer, and then leaps off the tailgate and dashes into the brush. The second yearling runs off even faster.

Hopefully, Williamson says, he'll never have to see either of those bears again. They'll steer as clear of humans as they can.

He loads back into the truck and starts driving back down the dirt road when the radio squawks with a report of people feeding a bear. Williamson sighs as the radio traffic continues. He can educate all of the bears he wants here, but he can't educate all of the people.