Yellowstone Bear Attack: What Are the Odds?

Early this morning, one person was killed and two others were injured in a bear attack at a campground in Montana's Gallatin National Forest, just outside Yellowstone National Park.

The Soda Butte campground, which has been temporarily closed since the incident, was also the site of a deadly bear attack in 2007. The two incidents had Surge Desk wondering about the likelihood of such an attack at Yellowstone itself.

From 1980 to 2002, more than 62 million people visited Yellowstone, spending roughly 17 million camping hours in the park, according to Kerry A. Gunther of the park's Bear Management Office. Over that time, 32 were injured in encounters with bears, resulting in a ratio of 1.4 injuries per year from bear attacks.
Thus, one's chances of being hurt by a bear at Yellowstone (assuming a similar number of camping hours per year) are approximately 1 in 2 million.

By comparison, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are 1 in 500,000, according to figures provided by the National Weather Service. And the chance of being struck by lightning over the course of an 80-year lifespan is 1 in 6,250.

Rates for bear attacks vary depending on whether one sticks to more populated areas of Yellowstone or ventures into less-charted regions (though Soda Butte is not considered the latter).



Source:http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/yellowstone-bear-attack-what-are-the-odds/19572675