USFWS releases report on fatal grizzly bear attack at Soda Butte Campground
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its final report Monday on a grizzly bear attack at Soda Butte Campground near Cooke City that left one man dead and two others injured on the night of July 28, 2010.
The report found that in the early morning hours that Wednesday a female grizzly and three cubs attacked three different people in three different tents at the campground. The report offered no clear explanation for the attacks or the predatory behavior of the bears.
The first attack occurred on Ronald Singer near 2 a.m. who was bitten in the lower left leg. Singer punched the bear several times in the face before it fled.
The second victim was Deborah Freele of who was bitten twice on the left arm approximately 15 minutes after Singer’s attack. The bear bit her left leg lightly before leaving.
At an unknown time before or after the two other attacks, Kevin Kammer, who was camping alone 600 meters downstream from Freele, was attacked and killed. The bear fed on a portion of Kammer’s body, which was not discovered by authorities until 4:21 a.m.
A necropsy of the 216-pound adult female grizzly captured at Soda Butte Campground, identified by DNA evidence as involved in human mortality and subsequently euthanized, showed that the bear was marginally underweight, but otherwise normal in most respects.
Of note in the report was isotope analysis that indicated the bear lived on an almost exclusively plant-based diet for the last two years. The report stated that 92 percent of grizzlies in Yellowstone consume more meat than this bear did, though it also noted the bear’s diet was not unusual for grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The analysis also showed that the bear consume little or no human foods in 2009 and 2010.
The three yearling cubs involved in the incident were transported to Zoo Montana in Billings.
A PDF version of the report is available here.
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