A Young Bear Misguided on the Trail. September 06, 2017 at 07:20. While bears are excellent at finding food on their own, they want to conserve energy. If they happen upon an unattended backpack filled with delicious hiking snacks, they will eat them. Yosemite’s black bears are relatively reserved creatures and instinctively shy away from humans. If a bear is rewarded with human food it can become food conditioned. Basically, once a bear gets food from humans (by hand-feeding or discovery of improperly stored food), bears will seek out human populated areas in their search for more. Eventually, bears can become habituated. Habituation is a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations. Bears lose their natural fear of humans and sometimes present aggressive behavior. In a park with 4 to 5 million visitors every year, an aggressive bear is likely to be killed to protect people. A Young Bear Misguided on the Trail-1 - Yosemite National Park (U.S. National Park Service) Hikers and rangers encountered the yearling so often that Yosemite’s Bear Team had to step in. In June, rangers hiked up the John Muir Trail and easily found the yearling. In fact, the bear allowed the rangers to get within two feet. Once darted with an anesthetic, the team took  measurements and tagged the bear with tag white 23. Because the bear was only one and a half years old, rangers hoped they could release it into a less populated area where it could learn to survive on it’s own. Unfortunately, White 23 was back on the John Muir Trail in less than a week; like many relocated black bears, it used an uncanny sense of direction to travel to its preferred location. Required information.