This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
There's nothing like a visit from a hungry black bear to put a damper on a campout or a day in the forest.
That's why state wildlife officials are urging Utahns to keep a clean campsite and to pack food away tightly when they visit bear country.
Bears have been encountered at five locations this week in northern Utah. One bear was euthanized after it raided a cabin kitchen at Bryant's Fork near Strawberry Reservoir; wildlife officers are authorized to do so if they consider the animal a threat to humans.
"We don't want people to be afraid," said Scott Root, a state wildlife officer. "If you see a bear, consider yourself lucky . . . . Just make sure to have a clean camp, and you'll be OK."
Wildlife officers reminded people Friday to take care not to lure bears into a dangerous situation.
In most cases in Utah, that means they have lost their fear of people, probably because they have smelled cheese doodles, brownies or some other tempting food where the humans are hanging out. Black bears will eat whatever food they can find.
"We always say a fed bear is a dead bear - and for good reason," said Steve Gray, a wildlife officer who fielded calls last week on bears in Provo Canyon, Park City, Spanish Fork Canyon and the bear in the cabin.
Still another sighting was posted on the Alta web site.
Utah has no grizzly bears, but encounters with its population of about 2,000 black bears in the state tend to pick up around this time every year.
Root said that at least one of the bears spotted this week looked to be about the age when its mother had kicked it out of the family den and pushed it to go foraging for food on its own.
Last June, a boy at the Hobble Creek Canyon Boy Scout camp was bitten through the tent wall by a bear.
Earlier this week, Jill Taylor called wildlife officers about a young bear that kept visiting her house at Covered Bridge in Spanish Fork Canyon.
Taylor first saw the bear about a week and a half ago, when she returned home and found hummingbird feeders bitten and paw prints in the hummingbird water on the porch.
"On Tuesday, my daughter was getting her breakfast ready, and she saw the paws and the bear looking through the window," Taylor recalled.
They snapped photos of their visitor peering into all the windows.
"The one thing we noticed was that he was not at all afraid," she said.
A neighbor was playing with her children in the yard on Friday when a bear walked between them.
Wildlife officials set up a trap in the yard that afternoon.
It is a long tube, and a trail of doughnuts and hot dogs leads into it, Taylor said.
"It's really exciting to see a bear when he's passing through," she added. But not when it makes a habit of coming around.