“State wildlife officials relocated a young bear from Prospector on Thursday morning. The animal was tranquilized and taken out of a tree.” — Park Record, May 28, 2026
A recent photo of an American black bear (Ursus americanus) clinging to the trunk of an aspen tree (Populus tremula) in a Park City neighborhood caught us by surprise. Why was this wild animal holding on to the bark of a tree for dear life in Prospector Square?
The young bear’s coarse, dark coat evenly covering its curved back and hind quarters triggered a memory of another wild bear.
The year was 1960. By mid-July, when daylight hours of summer stretched long into twilight evenings, kids like us who lived near Midwestern farm fields played kick-the-can while hoping to cup glittering fireflies in our eager hands. Meanwhile, our parents were carefully packing the fire engine red Studebaker Lark for a much-anticipated vacation to the North Woods of Wisconsin. On Dad’s orders, we would leave at dawn the next morning.
Mom and Dad, my little brother, our pet beagle, Bingo, and my 7-year-old self dragged our sleepy bodies out of bed and piled in the car. A 12-hour road trip lay ahead. For me, the long drive was worth every mile because my favorite place on Earth was at trail’s end. Cradled in virgin timber on the shores of a spring-fed woodland lake stood a rustic log cottage, our cabin in the pines.
Clear Lake echoed with the haunting calls of common loons (Gavia immer), but inside the old-growth conifer forest of northern white pines (Pinus strobus) there was a profound quiet. Those towering, soft woods offered refuge for undiscovered mysteries and my imaginings.
Very late that afternoon we eased through this densely forested landscape, our back yard, on the rutted dirt drive leading to the cabin.
Suddenly, I huffed, “Stop Dad. Stop the car!”
A short distance ahead, a mother black bear hugged a giant, moss-covered tree trunk 50 feet above the roof of our car. Trailing the sow were two young cubs, heads up, clutching the tree behind her. Cubs are practiced climbers. They learn to climb as soon as they leave their dens.
We rolled open the car windows. Filtered light drifted down from the forest’s lofty canopy. Dusk was approaching, but we were in no rush now. Cool, pine-scented air caressed our young faces, tilted skyward, mouths agape. One twin cub turned to look down at us as we looked up. Their black fur-covered rumps and light brown muzzles were evidence that we were actually watching three real life wild bears!
Until I moved to the Rocky Mountains in the early 1970s and learned about random attacks on humans by brown bears, or grizzlies (Urus arctos horribillis), I had no innate fear of bears. My toy teddy bears, “Winnie-the-Pooh” books and friendly “Smokey Bear” campaigns were a positive influence. Black bears were not threatening.
An estimated 850,000 black bears live in North America, with a population of roughly 4,000 living in Utah’s forests and mountains. They feel safe hidden in dens like hollow logs and caves, buried under brush piles or snow and are comfortable traveling along hiking trails and roadways. Unlike wolves and cougars, black bears are not territorial. Their home range, typically 15-77 square miles, is shared by both male (boars) and female (sows) bears.
Black bears are among nature’s most intelligent mammals. They are timid, docile and adaptable. They view humans as threats, and climb trees when frightened or to escape predators like wolves, cougars or other bears. Importantly, black bears are ruled by fear and food in that order.
So why had a black bear taken to a tree in the back yard of a Park City neighborhood? Miranda H. Mockrin, a PhD research scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, may have an answer.
America’s wildland-urban interface spaces, where human development meets the natural world, are growing. After mapping these interface areas across the continental United States, scientists discovered that in the 30-year period between 1990 and 2020, the number of houses in the wildland-urban interface increased 46%, from 30 million to 44 million! The size of the WUI increased by 179,000 square miles. According to her analysis, as of 2020 nearly a third (32%) of all houses in the United States were in WUI areas. Similar residential communities exist in Summit and Wasatch County.
Clearly, humanity has encroached and continues to infringe on wildlife habitat. Housing, commercial developments, roads, recreation and industry negatively impact the natural territories and behavior of wild animals.
Black bears, moose, wild turkeys, fox, coyotes, squirrels, deer and elk all share the forests, meadows and mountains we call home. When wildlife officials relocate bears, like the one treed in Prospector Square, they usually return to their home territory.
We have much more to learn about co-existing with wild animals in the backyards, roadways, slopes and trails of our wildland-urban interface.
The quiet image of a black bear tending her two cubs in their forested home has stayed with me for more than a half-century. In those few precious moments, a 5 year old and and a 7 year old were absorbed in a natural world resonant with wonder and wild seeing.
Leslie Miller is the co-editor of “Reimagining A Place for the Wild” and a former, long-time resident of Park City who now lives in Midway.