Are Bears Swearing Off Human Food?

American black bears break into cars, homes, and trashcans in search of food, but the addiction can be deadly—bringing humans and bears into close proximity. However, researchers studying the changing diet of the bears over the past century at Yosemite National Park have some promising news: The proportion of human food in the diets of bears that have learned to eat our snacks has decreased by about 63% since 1999. The results, published in this month’s issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, were discovered after researchers performed chemical analyses of hair and bone samples of black bears that lived between 1915 and 2007 and show that the park’s efforts to keep human food off the landscape have been successful.