Bureaucracy complicated news of man’s fatal grizzly mauling

Fatal bear attacks are rare, and the deadly mauling in June of a botanist by a grizzly bear that researchers had trapped and released just hours earlier is thought to be the first and only such incident in the United States. Any attack on a human by a predator draws intense scrutiny from the news media and the public. But bear attacks around Yellowstone National Park happen in a politically charged climate where every rumor, fact and utterance can become fodder for a wider debate on wildlife management. Internal communications and other documents from federal, state and local agencies gathered using public records laws show that wildlife officials closely monitored media coverage of Evert’s death. But there was no single authority that represented a unified voice for a diverse group of individuals and agencies involved in grizzly bear management. Those documents, and interviews with officials involved with the response to Evert’s death, also show that concern about politics, legal liability and interagency relationships complicated communications with the press and the public...more