Black bears an object of early tourists’ affections
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has long been synonymous with black bears. From the first automobile tourists to today’s long-distance backpackers, catching a glimpse of the iconic animal is the ultimate Smokies’ experience.
Of course, it was much easier to see one in the park’s early days when tourists regularly fed the bears without fear of reprisal. While it’s illegal to feed wildlife now, it was once an accepted practice, ensuring tourists could get a good, long look.
There was no such thing as bear-proof trash cans, so campgrounds and picnic areas became the bears’ main stomping grounds, giving rise to a host of problematic encounters. Some bears even broke into vehicles to get food left inside.
“They were always trying to catch a bear that was mischievous and getting into trouble,” said Teresa Pennington, who spent lots of time in the park during her childhood years in Asheville. “They would have big traps set up with a piece of meat inside and the gate would fall behind them. They would take them out of the park and release them, but three or four weeks later they were back again. They even had names for them.”
Many of the tourist shops in Cherokee would put bears in a cage and charge tourists to see them, spawning a black market for live bears. Trying to catch a bear was not just a source of money but entertainment for the kids, recalled Gary Carden of Sylva.
“You would pull up at Smokemont and raise the trunk lid and throw a pound of bacon in the back and then go hide. When the bear came in there to get the bacon you slammed the lid and drove off. Sometimes that bear tore that car all to pieces. You would drive around half the night and if nobody wanted the bear you had to go back to the park and let it out,” Carden said.
Bear etiquette today
Of course, feeding the bears is illegal today. It is important bears forage for food in the wild and retain a sense of fear toward humans. Bears that are fed come back for more, whether it’s seeking hand outs from hikers or prowling through picnic areas.
Wild bears are naturally afraid of humans, according to Smokies Park Ranger Bill Stiver, a wildlife biologist. It’s something he counts on to keep the park’s roughly 1,700 bears and 10 million tourists safely separated.
“If they have that fear of people they don’t take the risk of coming into a developed area and trying to get food and garbage,” Stiver said.
Problems result only when bears loose their fear of humans, usually a result of finding human food. A bear’s first foray into a campground or picnic area in the park will usually be at night when people have vacated or turned in to their sleeping bags. They still have apprehension about the human surroundings, and Stiver wants to keep it that way. So his team sets up a trap to catch the bear. They tranquilize it, tag it and then let it go in the same area where they caught it.
“We are telling that animal if you come into this area this is what will happen to you,” Stiver said. “We are trying to put the fear of people back into those animals.”
Only after the bear repeatedly enters the campground or picnic area in attempts to get food is the bear relocated to another part of the park. If the bear continues to return to the spot, and can’t be cured of its aggressive tendencies, the park service could have to resort to shooting the bear, giving rise to today’s motto “A fed bear is a dead bear.”
