But successful coexistence isn't possible everywhere and always requires the active management of both people and bears, Stephen Herrero told a meeting of bear biologists from the United States and Canada.
By allowing visitors to be close - albeit, not too close - to bears, park and refuge managers can expand the public's understanding, enjoyment and love of the species, said Herrero, a professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta.
Thursday was the second of a two-day workshop on the management of habituated grizzly bears sponsored by Yellowstone National Park and the Rocky Mountains Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit in Missoula.
Its mission: for researchers and park, forest and wildlife managers to compare the strategies they use to manage habituated populations of grizzly and brown bears, especially those frequenting areas of high public use.
The 1970s and 1980s were "terrible eras," Herrero told the group. "Bears were ripping into tents and pulling people out."
Almost always, the bears were food-conditioned; they were accustomed to human foods and would do anything to get them, he said. So the fix was obvious: close the dumps in places like Yellowstone National Park and educate people not to feed or make food available to bears.
Of course, Herrero said, every grizzly bear that fed at a dump did not attack humans. "But a huge percentage of those that ripped into tents were food-conditioned," he said.
Food-conditioned bears are much rarer nowadays, and so are the attacks on people; now, however, there is a new type of bear behavior that causes concern for both grizzlies and humans.
Now, some brown and grizzly bears are habituated to - or tolerant of - human visitors to their world.
Those bears may continue feeding on a roadside berry patch, even though dozens of people stop their cars to watch and snap photographs. Habituated bears go about their daily lives in at least the occasional presence of human beings.
At McNeil River State Game Sanctuary in Alaska, bears feed on salmon while visitors watch from a distance - and from locations known to the bears. Same, too, at a number of backcountry lodges in Canada, where visitors watch bears from towers and raised platforms.
But are habituated grizzlies less dangerous to humans? Herrero asked. And does the habituation put the bears themselves at greater risk?
"Even if a bear doesn't react to a human's presence, it may still be expending more energy," he said. "We don't know. We haven't explored what habituation means for bears."
Barrie Gilbert, a bear researcher from Utah State University, wondered if non-habituated bears don't spend more energy running away from people, especially on public lands where access is easy and use is increasing.
"A micro-evolution is going on in bears," Gilbert said. "A new, learned behavior is being passed on from parents to offspring."
And it's likely to become more widespread, as bear watching grows into an ever-larger, ever-more-lucrative industry, he said.
On Knight Inlet on the coast of British Columbia, a lodge known for its bear-watching potential grossed $1.8 million in one season, Gilbert said. "Just from bringing people in to watch bears."
Already, bear-viewing has eclipsed bear-hunting in its economic impact, said Colleen Matt of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. "It's huge, and growing every year."
Not all bear biologists are enthused by the trend, though, including Chuck Jonkel of Missoula's Great Bear Foundation.
"It bothers me to hear talk of the benefits of habituation," Jonkel told the workshop-goers. "It's like touting the benefits of serial killing. You get to meet new people and travel."
And what of the close-up bear-watching, the face-to-face contact advocated by filmmaker and author Timothy Treadwell, who died earlier this month in a bear mauling in Alaska's bear-rich Katmai National Park? Jonkel asked.
Treadwell was wrong, came Gilbert's reply. "We need to let bears be wild," he said. "We don't have to get up next to them. The more bear-viewing that can be done at a distance, the better."
In fact, Herrero said he and a pair of co-authors are working to define the "overt reaction distance" of grizzly and brown bears. There is such a thing as "too close," he said.
"An individual bear's response to humans is influenced by many factors," he said. Are they adults or young bears? What is the season? What are the humans doing? How much natural food is available to the bear? Has the bear had other experiences with humans? Are they genetically predisposed to tolerate human activity?
And there are places, including Canada's Banff National Park and Montana's Glacier National Park, where habituation would most assuredly lead to more dead bears, Herrero said.
Habituated bears in the presence of highways are at great risk of being hit and killed by a car, he said. They're also more likely to be fed by people - and food-conditioning remains a death sentence for bears.
Also a no-no, Gilbert added, is habituating bears to photo-taking tourists, then giving hunters access to the same population.
"I would close all the big salmon streams to hunting," he said. "It's just not ethical."
But "habituation happens," Herrero said, "and will continue to happen. So we had best study it and understand it, because I doubt that we could stop it - even if we wanted."
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com
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