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A woman was jailed for four days after getting too close to a grizzly bear and two cubs in Yellowstone National Park and refusing to walk away, even as the animal accused her.
Samantha Dehring, 25, from Illinois, pleaded guilty to “intentionally staying, approaching and photographing wildlife within 100 yards,” federal officials said following the May incident. .
Video of the interaction shows Dehring snapping photos of the grizzly bear and two cubs as other visitors retreat into their cars, the bear then “bluffing” charging it before walking away.
Visitors to the vast Yellowstone National Park are prohibited from approaching within 100 yards of a bear, feeding a bear, or approaching it to take pictures.
The US Department of Justice said that in addition to jail time, Dehring was ordered to pay a fine of $ 1,000 and a community service payment of $ 1,000 to a wildlife protection fund and to complete one year of unattended probation. She was also banned from Yellowstone, an ecosystem that spans Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, for a year.
“The wildlife of Yellowstone National Park is, indeed, wild,” said Bob Murray, acting US attorney for Wyoming.
“The park is not a zoo where animals can be observed in the safety of a fenced enclosure. They roam freely in their natural habitat and, when threatened, react accordingly.
“Approaching a grizzly sow with cubs is absolutely stupid. Here sheer luck is the reason Dehring is a defendant and not a crippled tourist. “
Grizzly bears generally avoid interactions with people, but can approach if food is available or if they feel threatened, especially with cubs.
Encounters between humans and grizzly bears are on the rise as the species, which was once close to extinction, recovers and spreads to places in the western United States where it has not been seen for decades.
Millions of tourists visit Yellowstone, known for its wildlife and spectacular geysers, every year, with a record 921,844 visitors in August.
Park rules prohibit harassment of wildlife, but incidents do occur, such as when a nine-year-old girl was thrown into the air by a bison after getting too close in 2019. Three years ago, a new one -bison calf died after tourists decided to put the animal in their car because they thought it looked cold.
Despite the large number of visitors and the concentration of bears, human deaths are rare. The risk of a grizzly bear attack in Yellowstone is one in 2.7 million visits. Across the ecosystem, there have only been 16 human deaths from bears since 1892.
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