Woman charged for teasing grizzlies in Yellowstone in viral encounter
An Illinois woman filmed being bluff charged in May by a Yellowstone National Park grizzly bear while snapping photos is now facing charges.
Samantha Dehring has been charged with feeding, touching, teasing, frightening or intentionally disturbing wildlife and violating closures use limits, the Billings Gazette reported Wednesday.
Dehring is set to appear in court the morning of Aug. 26, according to the outlet.
The park requires visitors stay at least 300 feet from bears and wolves and when Dehring was in its Roaring Mountain area on May 15, was roughly 15 feet from a sow, investigators said in court records, according to the outlet.
Witnesses told investigators that upon seeing the sow and her two cubs moving closer, they went back to their cars and told Dehring to also retreat, “but, she did not,” charges say, according to the paper.
The encounter was captured on video and made the rounds on social media.
The park took to Facebook 10 days after the incident — which Yellowstone said occurred late in the afternoon of May 10 — requesting help from followers to identify the woman.
“The female grizzly charged the woman who turned and walked away from the bears,” the park said, noting people with information could stay anonymous.
Charging documents state that Dehring unfollowed the park’s page, according to the outlet.
Court records say someone who had seen the video and Dehring’s name tagged helped to identify her, the newspaper reports.
After getting a warrant to search Dehring’s Facebook page, investigators found her photos of the bears, the Billings Gazette reports.
Dehring was charged in the wake of comedian Jake Adams hitting golf balls in the park, leading to a National Park Service investigation as well as Adams removing the videos from his social media, according to the outlet.
A 39-year-old hiker was significantly injured in a Yellowstone bear attack in the days following the Dehring incident, the paper reports.
A woman was found dead of an apparent bear attack earlier in Colorado at the end of April.
Earlier this month, a 65-year-old woman was killed in Montana when a grizzly pulled her from her tent in the middle of the night.
