211 Documented Defensive Killings of Grizzly Bears Between 2002-2023

AmmoLand ^ | August 20, 2025 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

Information released by the US Fish and Wildlife Service shows the number of grizzly bears killed in defense of human life is 5-10 times greater than previously thought.

On January 15, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published a proposal to revise the listing of the grizzly bears in the contiguous 48 states. The proposal includes the most complete information on grizzly bear mortality to date.

Studies to determine how effective various tools are in defending against grizzly bear attacks suffer from serious selection bias. If the defense is successful and no humans are harmed, the chance of the attack being published is greatly reduced. When humans are mauled or killed by a grizzly bear, the event is newsworthy. When no human is harmed, the event is less likely to be recorded in a way that is available to the researcher.

In the contiguous 48 states of the United States, the Ursus arctos horribilis (grizzly bear) population has been under intense study for several decades. The 2025 Fish and Wildlife Service proposal includes detailed statistics about grizzly bear mortality in the contiguous 48 states. There are severe criminal penalties for not reporting the killing of grizzly bears. This is the best data set available to determine the extent of defensive incidents where humans defended themselves against grizzly bears, and the bears were killed.

The data in the table covers the period from 2002 through 2023. The data is divided between independent bears (bears which live by themselves) and dependent bears (bears which depend on the mother for survival).

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: banglist; bear; bearrepublic; bearsrepeating; defense; grizzly; righttoarmbears; thingsiworryabout; unbearable

[reasonisfaith]

Funny how this change flips the meaning of “endangered” upside down (the only areas where they’re endangered are the places with the most grizzlies).