Bear Attacks in the Smokies

[Don Montierth]

This subject came up in another thread, so I decided to compile the incidents I know in the Smokies, the area I visit the most.  There are always questions about why bears attack.  These incidents don’t really answer that question.

With 14 million visitors each year and an estimated 1900 bears in the park, there are bound to be bear-human encounters.  The vast majority of them are benign in nature, and the bears normally avoid contact.  It is easy to surprise a bear in this densely vegetated park, and even when that happens the bear normally leaves with no incident.  In my 32 years hiking in the park I have only seen bears on the trail twice, and heard a third.  Bear scat is common, but actually seeing one is much rarer, at least it has been for me.  The most recent was this summer, when there was a bear meandering around the trail on the lower part of the Rainbow Falls trail, a very popular tourist destination.  The bear wandered back and forth across the trail for a bit, ignoring us.  It finally ambled off into the woods.  Later that same day when we were above the tourist attraction (Rainbow Falls) in very steep terrain, we rounded a corner and heard crashing sounds.  It sounded like a boulder had come loose and was rolling down the slope.  We waited for a bit before proceeding, and another solo hiker came down the trail and said a bear was running up the trail and when it saw him it jumped off the trail down the slope.  It must have been running away from my daughter and me.  The other hiker was glad to see us.

All backcountry camp sites have cables for hanging food, and you are required to use these cables.  You are also required to use designated camp sites, which means there are hanging cables at all legal camp sites.

I am aware of seven predatory bear attacks in the park.  I don’t count incidental contact like the time this last June when campers at a front country site had pet food improperly stored and a bear entered the tent to get it.  A woman and her daughter were scratched in the encounter, but the bear was after the food, not the people.  (The bear was captured and euthanized – the Park news release stated “The bear weighed approximately 350 pounds, which is not standard for this time of year, suggesting the bear had previous and likely consistent access to non-natural food sources,”).  Nor the time several years ago when someone went missing while illegally collecting Ginseng.  His friend did not report it for a couple of days, and a search resulted in finding his body with a bear acting aggressively.  Autopsy results indicated he had died of an overdose, so the bear found the body and decided it was an easy meal.

Predatory attacks from oldest to newest:

02 October 1989, Chimneys picnic area.  A woman was at the creek and heard noise behind her.  She turned to see a bear that charged her.  She ran but fell, and the bear grabbed her by the neck.  A couple of others present used rocks and sticks to chase the bear off.  She had a broken scapula and puncture wounds on her back and neck.  This was a tagged bear that already had a history of aggressive behavior.  Tourist feeding of bears in this area was a problem.  The bear was released in another location, and then later it was euthanized.

21 May 2000, Little River trail above the junction with Goshen Prong trail.  A woman and a man were hiking, while he was fishing up the stream.  She hiked on ahead alone.  Later as he fished his way up the stream he discovered her body and a sow with a cub nearby acting aggressively.  The sow and the cub were both shot.  Examination of the bears confirmed that they had fed on the woman.  This was the first known fatality from a black bear attack in the Smokies.

11 August 2008, lower part of Rainbow Falls trail.  A child was playing near a stream and a small male bear (86 lbs) attacked him.  His father was able to pull the bear off, and the bear continued the attack.  The bear was killed by rangers.  The boy required staples and stitches, and the father had minor injuries.  They were day hikers who had no food with them, though they had eaten KFC before starting on the trail.

06 June 2015, camp site 84 on the Hazel Creek trail.  A bear grabbed a teenage boy from his hammock during the night.  His father was able to chase the bear away (physically attacked the bear).  There were significant, though not life threatening, injuries.  The teen spent 5 days in the hospital.  Rangers shot a bear at the site the day after the attack but were unable to track it due to darkness and a heavy thunderstorm.  A few days later they caught another bear and euthanized it.  DNA tests indicated that the euthanized bear was not the one that attacked the boy.  They later found a bullet at the site with traces of bear sample and analyzed the DNA.  Results were not definitive (poor sample) but there was a partial match with bear DNA recovered from the boy.  They had properly stored food on the hanging cables.

10 May 2016, Spence Field shelter on the AT.  A through hiker set up a tent a short distance from the shelter.  A bear attacked him through the tent wall.  He was able to get away and get to the shelter without serious injury (treated and released from the hospital – bites on leg).  The bear returned and tore up the tent after he took refuge in the shelter.  He had properly stored his food on the hanging cables.  Rangers darted a 400 lb male bear at the shelter 3 days later and euthanized it since it was too large for them to fit a GPS collar and track it pending DNA results.  They trapped two additional bears at the site over the next few days (200 lbs and 170 lbs) and collared them, but DNA results indicated than none of the three bears had attacked the hiker.

~08 September 2020, camp site 82 on the Hazel Creek trail.  Hikers walked past the site on September 11th and noticed a tent there, and then saw a bear across the creek feeding on the body.  Rangers killed the bear after seeing it scavenge on the body.  It was unknown if the bear had killed him or had come across him after he died.  The autopsy report released a year later indicated that the bear had indeed killed him.

18 June 2021, camp site 29 on the Maddron Bald trail.  A teenage girl was pulled from her hammock during the night and mauled.  Other family members were able to drive the bear away.  She was airlifted out by a TN Air National Guard helicopter.  Two bears were observed around the site after the attack, and a large male repeatedly tried to enter the site despite rangers’ attempts to scare it away.  They shot the bear, and found that it had human blood on it.  The family had properly stored food on the hanging cables.

I have not attempted to determine if the attacks are associated with good or poor mast crop yield years.  I know that the bear encounters were low this past fall when there was an abundant mast crop.

An interesting side bar regarding relocating problem bears.  Problem bears in the Smokies are sometimes relocated.  Studies are being done to determine their survival after being relocated (preliminary results are that 2/3 are dead within 4 months).  One recent case is revealing.  A female was relocated in early June to a national forest in the SE corner of TN.  Over the next 6 months it was tracked as it moved into Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and then back into TN to the same campground where it had been captured, covering 1,000 miles.  It kept going on its multi-state travels after this.

Park trail map:

https://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/upload/GSMNP-Trail-Map_JULY21.pdf

[Murali C]

Wow! Amazing details Don. Thanks a lot for writing this up.

[Brad Rogers]

<p>Nice write up!  Though I haven’t done much backpacking in the park in several years, I’m about 750 miles in to my 900 miles in the park, and have seen many bears, though almost all run when they see you.  I did have two encounters when the bear did not run – and one where the bear (fasle) charged.</p><p>I was solo on the AT near Spence Field when I came up over a rise to see a black bear.  It stopped, looked at me and started to run to the right, then stopped and charged, stopping about ten feet from where I was on the trail.  I slowly backed up, and it slowly ambled off to the left of the trail.  I believe it had a cub, on the left side of the trail that I didn’t see.   This encounter really shaped my feeling of bear safety, mostly that the event all happened so fast that even if I had a holstered firearm or bear spray, there is no way I would have had time to unholster it and use it.  </p><p>The second time I was at Tricorner Knob Shelter and I wondered what the big pile of rocks on the sleeping platform was for, but I figured it out as a big 400lb bear came around and wouldn’t leave.  I was hiking solo, but there were four other hikers staying in the shelter that night.  All food (that I am aware of) was stored properly on the cable system but of course everyone cooked dinner on the benches and table at the end of the shelter so I am sure food odor was around.  </p><p>Most of the bears I’ve seen in the park have been in the southeast quadrent of the park, and that seems to be where they have the most problems.  </p>

[M B]

Not uncommon for bears to return to where they originated from after relocating.  Even being drugged, they have an innate navigating sense.

 

I recall one that was relocated numerous times ..

hundreds of miles away in VA finally…and it was reported… As soon as it got out the vehicle it looked around and started walking back towards Tennessee. And it showed up back at Cades cove.  Eventually died in auto accident.

 

[Justin W]

I wonder how they do this?  (Domestic cats also have been known to travel long distances back to a former home/location)

[Murali C]

That navigational ability is uncanny! Bats can also go for miles for food from where they roost and when they come back to the cave, they know exactly where their spot is apparently – there are sometimes millions of them in caves. Of course birds keep migrating thousands of miles every year. And then there are the Monarch butterflies which go back to this one place in Mexico every year.

Stephen Herrero – the bear expert in his book says to avoid bivy’s as well. And to camp in a big tent that has space around your head/legs so that a bear sniffing around cannot easily get to your legs/head etc. I think we have discussed the Hammock encounters in other threads on this site. Easy for a bear to bite through the hammock as they are curious or want to look up for food on trees etc

[obx hiker]

Great idea attaching the park map Don. I still after ? 50+ years can’t get used to orienting the main ridgeline and the AT as running west to east from Fontana to Davenport instead of South to North but check out that compass circle in the bottom right of the map.

Late September of 2021 I hiked the eastern (northern?) half again from Newfound to Davenport with side trips to LeConte and the Sterling Fire Tower; the scenic route. Got some photos here: Smokies Crest 9-2021

Got a lift back to Newfound with “A Walk in the Woods” I’ve had some great experiences with that outfit and highly recommend. This time my driver was the recently retired information officer for GSMNP. (Would be at the table for almost all big discussions?)  He was really informative but also appropriately circumspect. No big revelations but the impression that GSMNP will continue to tighten up and adjust on the bear/human interface. He had evidently also heard discussion of the relatively high # of relatively recent incidents involving hammocks and the usual “Hey it’s a hanging bag and that’s where those 2-legged critters are all putting their food so…..” conjecture. So there does seem to be some idea that maybe there’s a possible connection there; that maybe there’s some conditioning of those bears (bears in GSMNP?) to associate human hanging bag type objects with food. Sucks if true. Oh well.

I still think the relatively easy access to Spence and Russell from Cades Cove as well as easy access by boat to the SW shoreline and 82-88, along with the Cosby area and the different ‘culture’ that might engender may make a difference in the habituation of bears in those vicinities.

[Vanessa R]

I spent 6 summers between 2009–2017 conducting wildlife research in the GSMNP, and also in the National Forests bordering the park. I studied bats there so I was in remote areas all across the park in the middle of the night, but also during the day, often off trail conducting radio telemetry. We camped regularly, scattered around the area, but also stayed at research houses at Abrams, TwentyMile, Cosby, and Cataloochee; and it was common for us to use the AT. I saw black bears a few times a week, but never felt any threat by them. Even when I was coming down a trail pretty quickly went a round a curve where I couldn’t see the other side and almost ran into a bear…we both scared each other and the bear ran up the hill a bit the other way.

The worst is around Cades Cove since it’s the most touristy location and people make bad choices (throwing food, getting too close, etc.). However, having access to working in Cades Cove at night, we would regularly have bears around our surveying equipment but just gave them space and made a lot of noise when approaching if unsure if they were present. Never any issues. With camping and just working in general we were hyper aware of food storage and anything scented (e.g., lip balm). Anyone else ever notice how fragrant humans are with artificial scents in soaps and such? I always joked that you could pretty much smell when you are near a trailhead.

The only sketchy bear situation I ever witnessed was at Abrams campground and that was due to humans not following the rules. There are food lockers there but the campers still thought for some reason it’d be ok to have dried fruit in their tent at night (…yeah I know). They thankfully got out of their tent quickly and into the car, but the bear dragged the tent away and trashed it to get the food. The bear also ate the bean bags filled with corn for the corn hole game that other campers left out.

Anyways, just wanted to share my experience working in the Park and being around bears there.

[Bill in Roswell]

Thanks to all of you posting your GSMNP bear encounters. I hike there a few times a year. I started carrying an air horn after witnessing FS staff use them in campgrounds to chase off bears. So much for the “urban” myth that black bears are not aggressive. Bear encounters in north GA and west NC have increased notably the past few years. When solo, Ive started doing as I did in the Rockies – eat in a separate location than where I sleep. Tents and hammock attacks mentioned, but how about tarp users? Maybe if the bear can see and smell curiosity is satisfied? Hmmm…..

[obx hiker]

“Maybe if the bear can see and smell curiosity is satisfied? Hmmm…..”

Might depend on the degree of habituation/addiction?

Therein lies the rub. I’m trying to figure out patterns especially of locations where habituation is more likely to occur.

here’s a quote:  “A habituated bear is one that loses its natural fear of people, usually as a result of access to human food and garbage, which becomes addicting. These bears can become increasingly bold in their behavior, causing property damage and potential harm to people.”

The pattern I’m seeing is related to relative ease of access by day-trippers or overnighters to the campsite location and whether bears are more secure from hunting etc in the overall general vicinity. is the Black Bear population not conditioned to fear/avoid humans coupled with are there lots of  food careless people using the site or vicinity? Ironically one area these 2 criteria seem to coincide with increasing frequency is with the increase in bear/food/people incidents in more populous almost urbanized locations. Heck this September a couple got attacked at the Folk Art center on the BRP practically in Asheville, like when the leaves are off you can see downtown. Certain parts of the Smokies are another good example and a third harder to qualify precisely is more easily accessed over-nighter party type sites that are also not usually hunted because proximity to roads and/plus/or settled neighborhood situations. Some of these are along the AT route and others along the MST here in NC and there are reported incidents and closures. This third group is maybe the most worrisome since it potentially impacts a much greater # of trail miles.

At any rate Agree about following the 3 rules about camping, preparing/eating and storage separation almost anywhere nowadays along the Appalachian/Blue Ridge Mts. in NC/TN/GA but I’ve added a canister for food storage along with stringent odor minimization and pepper spray. The whole hammock thing makes me uncomfortable in certain locales which is really annoying.

Anyway there seems to be a definite trend towards increased habituation related incidents that is cause for concern and potentially impacts hundreds of miles of trail.

[Don Montierth]

I agree with a lot of what you said.  As I said, I have only encountered bears on the trail a couple of times.  I know others have seen more bears, but it is what it is.

The bear behavior in these few encounters corroborates the conditioning idea. The one we saw up close (<20 yards) on the lower Rainbow Falls trail pretty much ignored us and exhibited no fear. It walked toward us for a bit as it wandered.  That is a section of trail heavily traveled by tourists.  The one we encountered higher on that trail ran from us, and that was well above where the tourists go. The other encounter was on the AT maybe 5 or 6 miles from Clingmans Dome (southbound). That was in the Beech forest where the trees are small so you can’t see very far. We rounded a bend and a bear was standing on the trail maybe 40 yards away. It stood there looking at us for a minute and then ambled off.

The Smokies draw a lot of tourists who vacation in nearby resort towns and decide to “go to the mountains” for a hike.  I often see people miles from the trailhead with no pack, no water, no foul weather gear, sneakers, etc.  They are not good about food or wrappers, which doesn’t help the bear situation.  Once you get past the tourist spots the crowds thin significantly.

I have backpacked in SEKI a few times and saw bear signs but no actual bear sightings.  My brother does a lot of hiking in that area and he has chased bears out of his campsite a few times.  He is much more concerned about mountain lions than he is about bears.  The backcountry bears are generally not a problem, while the front country bears can become a problem.

[obx hiker]

“maybe 40 yards away. It stood there looking at us for a minute and then ambled off.”  Down by Double Springs. Depending on which way you’re headed Double Springs area is where you come into the first firs or leave the firs behind on the AT. There’s a couple of spots further south on the BMT where you can find transplanted firs. There’s a patch on Bob Bald and there’s recently been some planted near the old homesite and pond off Whigg Meadows but they’re just little ones. I love getting into the firs!

Now that i’m getting to be an old guy I’m starting to understand why Old Guys like tellin’ stories so here’s one.

First time I hiked the main Smokies Ridge in ’71 I chanced to catch a ride from some UNC drama students to the outdoor drama “Unto these Hills” in Cherokee. Next morning after a dramatic evening including the play they dropped me off at Clingmans. I had the regular old BSA canvas pack and a saucepan, some rice and some canned stuff and sterno and an ensolite pad but a good warm bag. Think it was a camp 7. I was wearing converse all-stars. Life was simple. Anyway I found out by the time I got to Newfound Gap that there was real food available at the Lodge on Mt.Leconte so I hiked over there down the Boulevard,

This was before the Balsam Wooley Adelgids had killed the big Red Spruce and the Boulevard Trail wound out to LeConte under a canopy of big red spruce and ferns covered the ground and you could see way out along the trail as it curved off along the mountain ridge in the distance disappearing from sight in the ferns under the big spruce. It was magic.

At LeConte back then I discovered that the garbage from fixing the meals at the Lodge was thrown out at a specific time daily and in effect fed to the bears. It was a regular event for the guests and I guess those of us staying at the shelter who had the scratch to buy a daily meal pass. As a result of this the Mt. top was just about crawling with bear. That first evening as I was meeting and hanging out with the gang at the shelter which was kind of a big party; a rather large bear came out of the forest and approached the shelter across the then cleared ‘lawn’ area and we all got inside the chain-linked enclosure across the opening of the Adirondack and latched the gate. There must have been @ 12 or so of us in the shelter. The big bear came over to the chain-linked enclosure and reared up standing at full height and grabbed the chain link and started shaking it back and forth and hollering or roaring or growling ; whatever you want to call it. I think we might have been hollering back and laughing but at the same time believe you me we were checking out the attachments and security of the chain link and thinking OK guess that’s why the front’s enclosed this way. A weird chance to be on the other side at the zoo.  After awhile he gave up and wandered off but the only way anyone would leave the shelter or walk over to the Lodge area was in a group of several after that experience and you had to recruit volunteers for a group run to the loo,

The next day after the big breakfast at the canteen they had the feeding event. Soon as they threw it out a couple of smaller bears showed up right on schedule. They’d barely grabbed a thing or 2 when a big momma bear came out and ran ’em off and then evidently called out these 2 cute little teddy bear cubs after she’d cleared the area. They hadn’t been there long when evidently she gave the 2 cubs some king of signal and lickity split up this big fir they scrambled and took a position on the first 2 limbs. Nothing happened for quite awhile, long enough to begin wondering what that was all about when finally about 10 minutes later this humongous mack-daddy bear came waddling out of the trees and took over. We were all watching this through the windows of the canteen like watching a play. I really don’t remember how it ended. Maybe they shooed them off or there wasn’t that much for them to eat but anyway it broke off a little later after the big guy left and the momma bear called the cubs back down from the tree and that was the show for the day.

Later that morning I was giving myself a shampoo at a water tap in the little cabin village hanging out with the local cat to freshen up before hitting the trail north again and the cat suddenly crouched flat to the grass and started hissing and when I turned to see what it was hissing at there was a scrawny teenager looking bear about 20 feet away. I reached for a rock and the bear ran off into the forest.

Didn’t see hide nor hair of a bear after leaving the vicinity of the Lodge but did jump some pigs somewhere before Pecks but didn’t see ’em. Just hear multiple somethings grunting and thrashing off through the undergrowth. The Lodge and environs have sure changed a lot since those days. It all looks completely different except some of the cabins and the view. That and the number of cars parked beside the road on both sides for more than a mile @ the Alum Cave trail head day of the ’21 hike. Amazing.

[Don Montierth]

The encounter I mentioned was a few miles farther away from Double Spring Gap in the Beech forest.

I would love to have seen the forest before the adelgids started killing off the Fraser Firs.  Fortunately they do not bother the Red Spruce, and the young Fraser Fir live long enough to reproduce.

Hiker and Lodge etiquette is far better now than back when you were there. The garbage is disposed of properly, the number of hikers spending the night at the shelter is limited to 12 (it was not uncommon to have 50-100 at the shelter in the 70s), and the chain link closure at the shelter is long gone.

[obx hiker]

I guess I’ve kind of drifted off from the subject of bears in the Smokies but maybe a drift into general discussion about  the natural history of the Southern Highlands is not such a bad thing.

Don you seem to have a honed knowledge of the subject. A keen student at the least. I’m basically just a generalist who loves the Southern Highlands.

Yes the Beech totally take over as you drop below 5400 approaching the narrows. Beech seem to love those high windy ridges and gaps or maybe they’re the best survivors. I find those little high elevation dwarf Beech forests to be another sort of magic. There are some really nice ones along the higher slopes of the Great Balsam Mts. in the vicinity of Black Balsam and along Ivestor Ridge off Mt. Tennant

On the ’71 hike I’d met a Duke Forestry Phd candidate at Collins conducting a survey of the existing limit of the Red Spruce in the Smokies and he informed me of the Adelgid problem. The effects of conflation and time on memory attributing it solely to the Red Spruce.

What I do remember clearly was the openness beneath the crowned canopy. Basically wherever you now have those thick almost impenetrable stands of juvenile firs the forest back then was crowned and canopied with large firs and much more open below. This allowed the type of views across coves from ridge to ridge or longer views down and along a ridgeline that one now enjoys in hardwood coves in the winter. It was really a different experience to enjoy this scene in warmer weather with all sorts of verdant low understory growth like ferns on the very highest ridgelines.

BTW some of those linked photos upthread are from LeConte in September of 2021. On that visit someone had brought along Fraser Magnolia blossoms and left them like offers on an alter on the 3 peaks. Brought to mind William Bartram.

Since that ’71 hike I have clambered over many spruce/fir skeletons in tagging the tops of all the 6K mountains in the east. Another sort of challenge like advanced bushwhacking.  I highly recommend the The South Beyond 6000 (SB6K) Challenge as an organized way to get to know the Southern Highlands in a different way than trail walking.

Below is a description of the adelgid problem for those not familiar.

” The adelgid was first noticed on a northern population of Fraser fir in 1957, and it subsequently spread to all populations (Johnson, 1980). Infested trees usually die within seven years (Johnson, 1980). A study on Mt. Guyot, Tennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park revealed that Fraser fir declined from 80% to 2.5% of living crown trees in the time period of 1967-1985 (Alsop & Laughlin, 1991). This demise resulted in a dramatic change in forest composition and dynamics on former Fraser fir sites. With the forest canopy removed, the understory changed from primarily blueberry (Vaccinium) and fir saplings to dense blackberry (Rubus), blueberry, and Viburnum populations. Increases occurred in the proportion of red spruce (P. rubens) and yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) in the forest canopy. The spruce-fir moss spider, Microhexura montivaga, and a narrowly endemic lichen, Gymnoderma lineare, that inhabit this unique habitat have now been listed as a federally endangered species. Changes in avian species and populations also have been observed in other studies (Rabenold et al., 1998).

Control of the adelgids with insecticides has not been successful or practical, particularly in Fraser fir populations residing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Biological controls have been attempted (Schooley et al., 1984; Humble, 1994), but none has demonstrated satisfactory levels of success to date. It is hoped that biological controls that are being studied for the hemlock woolly adelgid also will be successful with the balsam woolly adelgid. A planting of genotypes from different mountaintops was established in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park during the early 1990s to conserve the genetic resources of this fir species (S.E. Schlarbaum, personal communication, September 2002).”

The 3rd great tree Armageddon is winding up now as the great hemlocks bite the dust. None of us can remember the Chestnuts though from the many geographical place names like Chestnut Ridge and Chestnut Cove & etc. scattered widely all over our USGS topo maps with an effort we can maybe imagine what it was like to walk through those groves;  but we can still remember the Big Firs and the Giant Hemlocks.

[Don Montierth]

The forest north of the shelter on LeConte consists of tall Frasers with an open understory, and the forest floor is carpeted with moss, ferns, and Fraser seedlings.  I spent some time in that forest last October watching the trees waving in the strong, gusty wind the night we spent there. It was mesmerizing.

Other areas on the mountain exhibit a mix of old skeletons and younger trees, though over the last 30 years the young trees have been increasing in size. There is hope yet.

The Hemlock situation is sad.  I have to treat the Hemlocks in my yard every few years to fight off the Hemlock Wooly Adelgids.  Doing that for the Smokies, and other areas, is very challenging, though I know there is some effort. If you can’t save all of them, which ones do you save, and how do you get to them?

[Author]

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