Officials say 2007 is, so far, an average year for grizzly conflicts in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem despite a poor food year that has increased black bear conflicts five-fold in locations like Jackson Hole.

Wildlife managers from Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone National Park presented the grizzly statistics at the annual meeting of the Yellowstone Grizzly Coordinating Committee at Snow King Resort in Jackson this week.

Wyoming has seen 127 grizzly bear conflicts, compared to 130 conflicts last year, according to Wyoming Game and Fish Department Bear Management Program Supervisor Mark Bruscino. Most of the conflicts occurred in Cody, Dubois, or north of Pinedale, he said.

Bear managers captured 12 grizzly bears, including one animal that entered a trap by mistake and was subsequently released. Three of those bears were killed because they posed a threat to human safety. Four grizzlies died in hunting-related incidents, one died in a traffic accident, and a hunter mistook one grizzly for a black bear.

Bruscino said conflicts with both grizzly bears and black bears likely won’t end until the animals go into hibernation. “We could have as much as four or five more weeks,” he said.

In Grand Teton National Park, the only conflict so far this year occurred in June when a grizzly bear dubbed #399 mauled a Lander, Wyo. man near the Jackson Lake Lodge.

Fifty-four-year-old Dennis VanDenbos was jogging along Wagon Road at approximately 6 a.m. and had stopped to watch an elk when #399 and her three yearling cubs approached him. The bears had been feeding on a freshly-killed elk carcass.

One of the bears then attacked VanDenbos, inflicting lacerations and puncture wounds. Park officials aren’t sure if the bear that attacked was #399 or one of the cubs.

The 350-pound female grizzly and her cubs have become minor celebrities since they first appeared last summer, entertaining park visitors by digging for roots and rodents along Willow Flats, Oxbow Bend, and Lozier Hill. Wildlife managers determined that #399 was showing natural behavior in the attack against VanDenbos by protecting her three cubs and her meal.

Grand Teton biologist Steve Cain said grizzly bears like #399 are moving closer to roads in increasing numbers.

Yellowstone National Park saw 700 bear jams and eight instances of property damage, according to bear biologist Kerry Gunther. In one instance, backcountry campers woke to a grizzly bear lying in the middle of their campsite chewing on a pair of shoes. Managers relocated a three-year-old female dubbed “Poo Bear” who repeatedly chewed on sewer lines near Lake Village.

In May, Bozeman, Mont. photographer Jim Cole, 57, walked two to three miles to the Grand Loop Road in Yellowstone after a bear with a cub attacked him while he was taking photographs near Trout Creek in Hayden Valley.

Idaho saw 42 grizzly conflicts, two of which led to human injuries. In April, a Tetonia man was mauled by a bear feeding on a moose carcass while he was looking for his dog behind his home. This fall, a bow hunter in Island Park used bear spray on a sow and escaped with only minor injuries.

Montana saw 43 grizzly conflicts, including three instances when hunters were attack by grizzly bears near Gardiner.

Bear managers say they aren’t sure why grizzly bear conflicts have remained steady this year when black bear conflicts have increased so drastically across the ecosystem. One theory is that black bears rely more on vegetation like berries, while grizzly bears feed more often on big game such as elk calves.