Grand Teton National Park forced to kill bear “because of poor decisions” made by human visitors

September 17, 2026 / 12:48 PM EDT / CBS News

A black bear was euthanized at Grand Teton National Park last week, in a move that park officials blamed on the "poor decisions" of human visitors.

"We need to be clear—this bear was lethally removed because of poor decisions made by park visitors," the park said. "It is everyone's responsibility to help keep bears wild: Never leave food unattended, even for a moment."

Staff were forced to kill the animal on Friday, Sept. 11, after observing what the park described as "a concerning pattern of behavior, both from the bear and visitors," which "escalated over several days."

The bear was repeatedly approaching humans around Delta Lake, in a remote section of the Wyoming wilderness area, the park said. When they began monitoring the animal more closely, park staff found it was "unusually difficult to haze away," suggesting the bear had been conditioned by the prospective reward of human food.

Preventing bears from learning to relate food sources to humans and their space is important, the National Park Service writes on its website. That's because it's difficult to revert a bear's behavior once it has begun to associate places like campgrounds…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/moneywatch/