In the middle of the night last fall, Calico restaurant-area resident Hannah Navarro heard a bear just outside her window.
The bruin had sniffed out Navarro’s trash and was wrestling with her chain-and-carabiner-latched garbage can. She jumped into action, knocking on the glass, thinking she could scare the bear off. But the bruin wasn’t deterred. Instead, it just sat there, eating her garbage.
“So I went and got my bear spray, and I opened up the window, and I just sprayed him in the face close-range,” Navarro said. “And he ran off.”
Navarro now knows that her trash can was not bear-resistant, and thus noncompliant with Teton County rules. Last fall, she received a notice of violation from Teton County telling her as much and imploring her to get a new trash can. The notice was one of hundreds that Olivia Graykowski, a county code compliance officer, has posted on trash cans around Jackson Hole. It’s mundane, not-often-appreciated work. But Graykowski’s work puts her on the front lines of protecting Jackson Hole’s beloved bears.
Without enforcement, problems with bears will just get worse, she said. In places like Lake Tahoe, California, some neighborhoods require metal bear boxes in front of almost every house and homeowners string electric wires across windows to keep bruins from breaking and entering. In Aspen, Colorado, some 30 bears have taken up residence around the Pitkin County landfill, and pillage nearby neighborhoods.
“I don’t know if people really understand where it could get to, because it hasn’t gotten there yet,” Graykowski said. “The work we’re doing is trying to prevent that.”
In 2024, a commuter struck and killed Grizzly 399, a world-famous bear whose 2021 journey through southern Jackson Hole inspired Teton County and the Town of Jackson to beef up their bear-proofing efforts.
After the grizzly matriarch died in the Snake River Canyon in October, the News&Guide used the Wyoming Public Records Act to request every notice of bear-resistant container violations Teton County sent in 2024, which totaled 330 violations issued to 284 different property owners. Violations were clustered near Wilson, Rafter J and Highway 390. The violators list included acclaimed mountaineer Jimmy Chin, the News&Guide’s own multimedia sales manager Chad Repinski and businesses like the Blue Collar Restaurant Group’s Sidewinders American Grill on the West Bank, as well as the Bodega gas station at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.
Blue Collar CEO Nicole Davis said that, because most of the group’s restaurants are in Jackson, she didn’t know about the county requirements until receiving the notice. Sidewinders bought a compliant dumpster shortly afterward. Repinski also came into compliance. Chin and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort did not respond to requests for comment.
In 2024, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department recorded 148 black bear conflicts in Teton County — situations where bears endanger people’s safety, their property or bear conservation — which was about twice the annual average. Most of the issues were in the neighborhoods where county officials issued violations: neighborhoods along Highway 390, the town of Wilson and the neighborhoods along Fall Creek Road south of Wilson.
Of the conflicts, 127, or 85%, involved unsecured garbage, Game and Fish large carnivore biologist Mike Boyce said. State officials relocated 10 blacks bears and killed six.
On his morning patrols, Boyce regularly sees trash cans that bears have “nuked,” leaving “garbage strewn about.” But he still thinks the Jackson Hole community is making progress in locking up its trash more securely.
“Lack of enforcement has been the missing link,” Boyce said. “And we just continue to have conflicts in the same places.”
Stern warnings
On a warm spring Thursday in May — trash day — Graykowski shifted Teton County’s Chevrolet Equinox into gear and drove straight from town to the West Bank of the Snake River. She meandered through the trash can-lined streets of neighborhoods near Wilson and off Wyoming Highway 390 with her eyes peeled. She scanned trash cans, evaluating whether they fit county regulations requiring homeowners to dispose of their garbage in self-locking, bear-resistant cans.
When she spotted older carabiner-latched cans similar to the one Navarro had replaced, or trash bags strewn about, Graykowski stopped and got out of the car to take photos on a county iPad. Graykowski attaches those photos to formal notices of violation for disobeying county land-use regulations and feeding wildlife. But even sending the notice of violations marks a change of approach for the Teton County Planning and Building Department, which enforces county regulations.
Rather than educating offenders, officials are now pursuing enforcement, Planning Director Chris Neubecker said.
Regulations requiring bear-resistant trash cans around Wilson have been in place since about 2009. But after the new county code passed in 2022, the department started attaching orange tags to cans, attempting to educate homeowners about the new requirements. Code compliance officers would then write outreach letters. In 2024, the county started taking a “sterner” approach and issuing the notices of violation.
But Teton County officials can’t issue fines directly. Doing so requires going through a lengthy process known as “abatement,” which requires hearings before county commissioners and, ultimately, court enforcement.
That judicial-like process hasn’t happened yet during Neubecker’s tenure — but it could soon.
If a property owner receives numerous notices of violation and fails to lock up their trash, the county will issue them a notice to abate, Neubecker said. The county has a few property owners on its radar who have been notified about non-compliant bear cans numerous times. Depending on whether those property owners comply, the county could have an abatement hearing soon, Neubecker said. The proceedings would closely resemble a property tax dispute.
“Teton County would present its evidence,” Neubecker said. “And then the property owner would have an opportunity to present their evidence about why they feel that they are in compliance, or they can rebut our evidence.”
One Wilson resident received four notices of violation last year, but was was out of town receiving medical treatment. Five other county property owners received three notices in 2024.
The Town of Jackson, which passed new bear-proofing regulations later, only requires the cans on its periphery in a “bear conflict zone” that skirts the Bridger-Teton National Forest and Tribal Trail Road. Town data was not included in the News&Guide’s request.
Getting canned
After receiving a county violation letter last fall, Navarro enthusiastically got a new can.
“It’s just making smart choices so that we can coexist with the wildlife in our neighborhood,” Navarro said. “They were here first.”
Lea Fine, who also lives along Highway 390, concedes she didn’t always latch her older trash can properly. When Fine knew the bears were afoot, particularly in the fall, she latched her can. But she wasn’t so ardent about it when the bears weren’t as top-of-mind.
Fine knows she lives in bear country and her relationship with the animals is nuanced. She likes bears but also wants to let her dogs out. Sometimes, even that can feel risky, she said, talking with the News&Guide in her front yard.
“It’s pretty cool that you get to see these animals up close,” she said. “But it’s a little scary.”
After receiving one violation, Fine updated her can. She rented a can from her trash hauler.
For the planning department, Fine and Navarro’s decision to get new cans — not to mention Sidewinders’ and Repinski’s — represent progress, shrinking the county’s known list of violators.
“The list used to be bigger, and now it’s smaller,” Graykowski said.
People and bears
Bears and people are better and safer apart from each other, said Boyce, the bear biologist.
Bruins that do regularly get into garbage develop a taste for human food. “That’s something that they never forget,” Boyce said. The bears become more persistent and spend more time searching for garbage around people. That leads to conflicts, which can be “destructive and potentially dangerous,” Boyce said. Sometimes it can lead Game and Fish to euthanize bears.
In some areas, like Teton Village, Game and Fish has begun to see progress. The wildlife management agency recorded only one conflict last year in the village even though the area used to be a hotspot for conflicts, Boyce said.
“We made some serious progress up there with the garbage storage,” he added.
Teton County’s enforcement is promising, Boyce said.
“I fully support it,” he added.
— Christina MacIntosh contributed to this report.
Hi. I was named in this story, and I applaud young Charlie for not sheltering N&G employees from criticism.
Prior to publication of this story, my family had acquired the required bear-proof bin. However, my delay was intentional and a form of protest: The idea that Teton County would fall under this requirement, but not the majority of the Town of Jackson, is laughable. We literally have video of 399 + cubs walking through the Town Hall Parking lot. Perhaps bears now understand political boundaries? Not sure, as Im not a wildlife biologist.
I hope conservationists and those who care about bears lean on the TOJ to change their position, and I dont regret my own delay to help illustrate the point. That being said, I couldn’t leave this unaddressed and lead old friends like Angus and Koshmrl to believe Im anything but an advocate for our wildlife resources.
It’s not complicated. Fine them.
Raising rates on the offender is a start if they are that privileged let them pay for the extra clean up and nuisance
This didnt used to be a chronic problem. There are too many bears. The time has come for managed grizzly hunts.
Killing bears is your answer?Good grief..😞
Competition/hunger pushes these bears into areas they would not normally want to be.
It’s also the most likely reason 399 progressively moved south as she aged leading to her human involved death.
If the bear numbers were thinned, they are going to keep getting pushed through need to escape other bears.
Nonsense. Bears will always want to be where there is easy food. If there was only one bear, he would be at the open garbage can.
If they are feeding bears it will be a problem. Now, in the past and in the future.
If you look at the Grizzly Bear mortality charts assembled by The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, yes, unsecured attractants has always been the reason for a vast numbers of Grizzlies to be killed each year by State Game & Fish Agencies.