Grand Teton officials shot a roughly 200-pound, six-year-old female black bear Wednesday after numerous attempts to scare her away from Colter Bay Campground.

Yellowstone spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs said the bear had received numerous food rewards at the campground this summer including beer, s’mores and breakfast food. The bear had also exhibited aggressive behavior towards humans.  

Large numbers of black bears have come down to lower elevations in search of food this summer due to an early season drought that limited supplies of natural bear foods such as berries. Also, Skaggs said that visitors to Grand Teton have continuously violated food storage requirements this summer, which often means a death sentence for bears who stumble upon human sources of calories.

Rangers used a shot gun to kill the black bear in the woods near Colter Bay Campground after attempting to capture her using a tranquilizer dart. “It’s a really difficult action for our rangers to take,” said Skaggs. “They don’t take that task lightly. It’s unfortunate that repeated food rewards and habituation to people have led to this extreme step of having to eliminate this bear from the population.”

Biologists first caught the bear when she weighed 75 pounds in July of 2005. They tagged the animal and, twice more, captured her in research traps in early 2006. During this time, Skaggs said she was well-behaved, feeding only on natural foods.

But by mid-summer, she had joined a male black bear, possibly her brother, in raiding the Colter Bay Campground. Grand Teton rangers captured and euthanized the male bear after he reportedly nipped a small boy who was sleeping in his tent. Skaggs said officials aren’t sure which bear, the male or the female, actually bit the boy.

The female then disappeared and did not return to the campground until early 2007. Rangers succeeded in frightening her away from the area for a few weeks in July, but she returned and started acting even more emboldened toward people, Skaggs said.

“She got much more bold and aggressive about obtaining food at the campground,” Skaggs said.

Park officials are asking visitors to make sure that food remains secured in a storage facility or vehicle. People in the backcountry should hang their food.