Bear-ly Fazed: Martin Stands Up to Grizzly

It’s a grizzly tale with a good ending.

A grizzly bear recently tried to gain entrance to a home in West Yellowstone, Montana through the garage only to find a Martin Garage Door is a lot tough competitor than meets the eye.

The bear ripped out the vinyl windows and tore back some of the edges of the steel around the Flushline Series II Door with Cathedral windows in its bid to gain access to food inside the garage. But the bear eventually moved on when the door proved to be too formidable. The homeowner, Blair Anderson, was able to identify his would-be-prowler as the grizzly that had been seen in the neighborhood. The bear left blood and fur all over the front of the door.

Anderson raises homing pigeons and said he had a lot of bird seed stored in the garage. The bird seed was a draw to the animal.

Lynn Griggs of Snake River Overhead Doors of Rexburg, Idaho was called to replace the door section and said he found little evidence of the forced entry attempt from the bear---beyond the vinyl windows. The fur and blood were washed off by rain and the steel in the door’s sections had no dents, despite the bear’s pawing, Griggs said.

The confrontation did force a small change in the door, however. Anderson opted to put in a full section without windows, the second time around.

Griggs said Anderson was very impressed with the strength and quality of his garage door, following the bear incident.

Besides durability and toughness, there is another unique feature about a Martin Garage Door that makes it easy to maintain---and in rare cases repair.

Anderson’s door was repaired after replacing just one section, when a normal garage door would like have sustained far greater damage, and required a total replacement.

The bear versus garage door confrontation is not a new one.

An Idaho naturalist who has spent years photographing and studying bears, said a grizzly bear will easily tear into anything where they smell food. He said a grizzly’s sense of smell is so good it is as powerful as a skunk smell is to a human.

Little gets in the way of a bear bent on accessing food the naturalist said. He tells the tale of an outdoorsman who trapped in the winter and prospected in the summer in the Yukon who learned to leave his cabin door and window open, when away from the cabin----to save on the replacement costs for doors and windows.