Yesterday I hiked to one of my trail camera sites planning on retiring the camera for the summer. Because our deer and elk migrate into the high country around Yellowstone starting in May, there is little action with large predators. Grizzly bears start to disappear around early July. On the east side of Yellowstone in the high elevation cirques of the Absarokas, moth sites feed the bears. Cougars are following our deer which make one of the longest migrations in the ecosystem. Wolves probably completed denning and will be taking their pups to rendezvous sites with a babysitter or two, while the other adults forage for food.
Cougar print at 10,000 feet early June in the Beartooths. Lions are following the migrating elk
So you can imagine my surprise when I looked at my camera videos. My newest male cougar is still hanging around, marking his territory with scrapes. He appears to have beat off another large male that has one eye, the other probably lost in a fight. One-eye was last seen at the end of March.
New male in the area. Notice he has eyeshine in both eyes, distinguishing him from One-Eye
Even more exciting, I caught a mating pair of grizzlies. By the time of the year, and the fact that these are two adults, you can be sure this video is a male following a female in estrus.
Large male grizzly. See video link for full story
In summer, when grizzlies disperse for high elevations, the black bears take over. Male black bears will make sure to display who is boss by tree rubbing, destroying cameras, and stomping which also puts down their scent. Interestingly, grizzlies know they are the real top of the food chain and could care less about cameras, although they do rub trees, both males and females. Here is a video of a grizzly female with two cubs spending time tree marking with her cubs following suit.
Mama Grizzly. See video link for story
On a very interesting note, I camera-captured two blonde animals this spring—a fox and a black bear—both fairly rare. To understand this in greater depth, I contacted Jim Halfpenny, well-known mammalogist and tracker. Jim told me he had never seen a fox this blonde, whether at fur sales or in the field. He thought maybe this fox could be a fur farm escapee, but in my inquiries we haven’t had a fox farm in the Big Horn Basin since 1996, plus I live in the high mountains next to Yellowstone so the mystery continues. In addition I’ve never had a fox show up at this location before. This little blonde red fox continued to visit this site over the course of several months, which adds to the mystery.
Blonde phase Red Fox. See the entire video via link above
The blonde phase black bear is also unusual around these parts. Halfpenny told me he had only seen one briefly around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and never as blonde as this one. Color phases of black bears are not unusual, but the blonde phase is the rarest. Here is a link to an interesting breakdown of color phases of black bears in North America. Although it is presented by a hunter, it is informative. I do NOT support any trophy hunting, but I encourage you to watch this for information. No actual hunting is in the video.
A large carnivore biologist who I showed the videos to had an interesting thought. “Wonder if this is a genetic expression due to the initiation of climate change,” he wrote me. Thinking outside the box leads to interesting possibilities.
Blonde phase Black Bear. See video via link above
Finally, my new book Shadow Landscape is now available on Amazon. These are stories of wildlife encounters I’ve wanted to tell for a long time. I appreciate all my readers and followers. Thanks for your interest in our iconic wildlife.
For those of us who care about the fate of the grizzly bear, for those who love to see grizzlies in Yellowstone National Park and its outer ecosystem, Engineering Eden by Jordan Fisher Smith is an important chronicle of the bear’s recent history and how we almost lost him.
Many do not know that it was Yellowstone Park Superintendent Jack Anderson and Yellowstone’s chief biologist Glen Cole who almost brought Yellowstone grizzlies to extinction following the 1967 maulings in Glacier National Park known as The Night of the Grizzlies. The reaction to the night of August 13th, when two women were mauled to death in two separate incidents by grizzly bears, led to the quick closing of Yellowstone dump sites. The closings were over the objections of Frank and John Craighead.
The Craighead brothers had been conducting the first in-depth grizzly study in the Park. In an 11 year continuous study beginning in 1959, the brothers invented the first radio collars, collaring and ear-tagging 256 bears in the Park during that time. Their study shed light on where grizzlies denned, the size of their home ranges, and how bears homed back to where they were captured. From the results of their research, the Craigheads proposed the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem—linking Yellowstone, Grand Teton, five national forests, and two national wildlife refuges into a single landscape. It was apparent to them that the boundaries of the Park itself were not sufficient to protect nor contain the food sources and wanderings of grizzlies.
Craighead Brothers move a grizzly (NPS photo)
While Anderson and Cole wanted to immediately close all the Yellowstone dumps, the Craigheads, knowing these bears had grown up adapted to receiving food rewards and understanding the bears better than anyone, advocated for a slow change-over, dropping road killed carcasses at the Trout Creek dump site. In other words, a slow wean rather than cold turkey. In the end, the Craigheads were right. Without the additional food sources of the dumps, the bears began heading into campgrounds, rummaging for food. At that time campers were not protecting their food, nor were there bear-proof cans provided. Everything happened too fast. Rangers were employed to kill problem bears and the bear population crashed to below 150 bears. Since bear reproduction is extremely slow, even after the bears had been on the Endangered Species list for ten years in the mid-1980s, most scientists thought the Yellowstone grizzly would soon be extinct. By 1990, the Greater Yellowstone grizzly population had dipped to 99 bears. Slowly, it began to creep back up to present day estimates of about 750 bears.
Engineering Eden uses as its focal a lawsuit trial centered around the death of a young man named Harry Walker. Walker was passing through Yellowstone in 1972 with a friend. They camped about a mile outside the designated campgrounds in Old Faithful, left their food out, set up a tent, then went back to the lodge for the evenings entertainment. Trying to find their way back to camp after midnight on a moonless night, Walker was mauled and killed by a grizzly who’d found their food. The family sued the United States government, and in a high profile case, Starker Leopold, son of Aldo Leopold, testified as an expert witness for the government while Frank Craighead testified for the family. Smith uses the trial, going forward and backward in time, to bring to light all the events surrounding the case, even discussing black bears in Yosemite that were also garbage bears.
If you don’t know about The Night of the Grizzlies, there’s a Montana PBS special worth watching, or a short but excellent book by Jack Olsen. Yet it is worth recapping that night since this was the spark that ignited what followed in Yellowstone.
The two fatal incidents occurred on the night of August 12, 1967, two different bears, separated by eight miles and a formidable mountain named Heavens Peak. Since the Park’s creation in 1910 there had not been a single fatal encounter with a grizzly bar. So these two attacks on the same night raised a lot of controversy. But they were actually a long time in the making which included other non-fatal maulings that had occurred in Glacier. Food dumps and trash from the growing number of visitors attracted bears, black and grizzly, for years. Granite Park Chalet, the site of one of the maulings, had been dumping garbage just 200 yards from the building. The year before, the Park Service provided an incinerator, but the sheer volume of visitors created more trash than could be burned nightly. Plus, the nightly arrival of grizzlies was a tourist attraction that was coveted. The dumping continued.
With a long term drought depressing the berry crop, critical food for grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide, bears had grown particularly dependent on these dumps. At Trout Lake, on the other side of the Livingston Range, one bear in particular had been trouble throughout the summer. She was old, underweight, and unafraid of humans. That summer there were reports of this old female marauding campers and campsites, even confronting them while on horseback. She had been hanging around a private outfit called Kelly’s Camp at the head of McDonald Lake getting into their garbage. Yet no action was taken by the Park Service. Things were different in those days and with no grizzly bear major incidents since the Park’s opening, policies were lax.
Michele Koons had hiked into Trout Lake earlier in the day with a few friends. This bear had come into their campsite earlier and they drove her off. The group then moved their site closer to the lake and built a large bonfire. At 4 a.m. the bear returned, sniffing out their sleeping bags. Although her companions escaped up trees, Michele, unable to slip out of her bag, was carried into the woods. With first light, Koons’ companions hiked out to the McDonald Ranger Station to report the mauling. When the rangers found her body, it was mauled beyond recognition.
“Trout Lake was typical of all the other campgrounds at that time in Glacier National Park,” said Bert Gildart, the ranger who responded to the grizzly attack at Trout Lake in an interview with the Great Falls Tribune in 2017. “I think all the campgrounds in Glacier National Park were a mess. When the chief ranger and I flew back in there a few weeks later, we picked up an immense number, probably 17 burlap sacks we loaded into a Huey helicopter and it was all full of garbage that people had left behind.”
Meanwhile, since the Granite Park Chalet was over-flowing with visitors the evening of August 11, Julie Helgeson and her boyfriend Roy Ducat decided to camp at the campground 500 yards down the trail. A similar scenario played out, with the grizzly first mauling Ducat in his sleeping bag. When he played dead, the bear turned to Helgeson. Ducat climbed out of the bag he was sharing with Julie, and ran for help as the bear dragged Helgeson down the ravine. A search party found her alive, although she died soon thereafter from excessive loss of blood and shock.
Rangers were dispatched to kill the offending bears. Bert Gildart and Leonard Landa shot the old female at Trout Lake. “It was determined on the spot that this bear had glass embedded in its teeth,” Gildart told the Tribune. “So here you had a bear with difficulty chewing and eating in the first place and as well a bear that was horribly emaciated or run down. It couldn’t eat. It weighed slightly over 200 pounds. It wasn’t a big bear at all. It was about 20 years old, an emaciated sow. That’s the reason why it probably fed on the girl.”
Up at Granite Park Chalet, following the mauling, Ranger David Shea was told to kill any bear that came to their dumpsite. The result was three dead bears, including a sow with two cubs. One cub was shot in the jaw by a second ranger, survived the winter, then killed in the spring when he returned to feed on garbage.
From these two incidents, immediate changes in Glacier policies were initiated. “Pack it in, Pack it out”, backcountry campgrounds were concentrated, cables for hanging food were set up, education programs began. But of course all the cleanup of the backcountry along with de-habituating bears took time.
For years I could not make sense of what happened to my friends and I in Glacier National Park in the summer of 1972. My friends Karen and Sarajo and I had spent our high school free time backpacking with other teenagers and a parent chaperone in the Sierras and high mountains of the San Bernadino forest. We thought of ourselves as pretty experienced. We understood cleaning up our cooking site and hanging our food high in trees. In those days, there wasn’t any freeze-dried backpacking food sold. We brought rice, lentils, and other grains that needed cooking for an hour. Smells wafted through the air. But still, a clean camp could be kept.
That summer my friends and I were on a journey typical of teenagers who had just graduated high school. It was the beginning of the rest of our lives and we were excited. We’d hitchhiked to Waterton Lakes National Park with the intention of a through-hike. We stopped at the visitor center for maps and information. Two Canadian rangers stared at us from behind the counter. When we told them our plans, they both looked genuinely alarmed.
“There’s a 10 mile hike that follows a lake. A ranger station is at the lake’s end. From there you can continue on into the United States. You know there are bears out there, grizzlies and black?”
“What about grizzlies,” I asked. We knew what to do about black bears, being an abundant nuisance in the California Sierras.
“You have three choices if you encounter one that charges you. You can climb a tree. Grizzlies can’t climb trees. You can drop to the ground and play dead. Lie on your stomach, put your hands behind your neck.”
“What’s the third option,” Karen asked.
“Play chicken. Stand in place and stare him down. More than likely that bear will run and veer off at the last minute. But not a guarantee.”
I didn’t give his advice much second thought, but playing chicken isn’t in my nature. Climbing a tree sounded doable.
We camped at the visitor center campground that night and set out in the morning. Much of the hike paralleled the lakeshore. The day was overcast, drizzling on and off. By early afternoon we found a suitable campsite by the lake, built a small fire in a clearing adjacent to the lake and began to prepare dinner.
Our pot, blackened on the bottom from being set over the open flames, wafted aromas throughout the forest. Although the rain abated during our dinner hour, a dark overcast sky signaled a possible storm, so we set up our tents. Gear in the 1970s was heavy and expensive, and as teenagers we had no extra cash for backpacking tents anyways. Instead we’d brought “tube tents”, $2 tubes of orange plastic that hung on a rope between two trees. A clip held the ends loosely together to keep rain out. It was a lousy system. If you really needed it, condensation might be just as bad as the pouring rain outside. But it held in a light rain.
The clouds were closing in as we finished dinner around the fire. We cleaned up and dutifully hung our food high in a tree. Dusk settled and conversation about our trip and the long day began to flow. In the dimming light, Sarajo spotted something moving in the trees at the clearing’s edge.
“Bear.”
I looked up to see an enormous black bear lumbering towards our hung food. He stopped directly under the food sacks, spent some time pondering them, then obviously decided it wasn’t worth the effort to climb the tree and shimmy the branch. Bears don’t see well, I knew this, but he looked like this wasn’t his first food rodeo as he began beelining towards our fire.
In all my backpacking days up till then, I’d never had a bear encounter, but we instinctively knew what to do next. We yelled and grabbed our pots, banging like our life depended on that noise. It was a tin chorus but the bear wasn’t fazed. The pots were battered but the bear kept coming. Something seemed off with this bruin.
These were our two tried and true methods—hang your food, make a lot of noise—and they were not working. Our packs leaned nearby against a tree. Although there was no food in it, I was sure the packs smelled from our dinner’s cooking. The bear began rummaging around the packs, sniffing and exploring all the openings. Meanwhile we were building up the fire until it was a roaring blaze. I contemplated jumping in the lake. It was close by, and maybe the bear would be discouraged and gone soon. It didn’t take me long to nix that idea—a glacial lake with darkness descending—it was clearly a terrible idea. I glanced around at the trees, remembering what the ranger had told us. Of course, this was a large black bear, not a grizzly. But at that moment it didn’t seem to matter. Yet this forest was not like those in the southern Sierras, full of trees that were stout with lower branches. This Canadian forest had trees that were mere sticks with slender narrow trunks. They required shimming up and I wasn’t sure I could do that. So I threw more wood on the fire.
Meanwhile, the bear now seemed quite comfortable exploring our campsite. He finished with our packs and turned towards us. We sat perfectly still, breathless. I was wedged between Karen and Sarajo. Keeping one eye on the bear, the other on the fire, we’d all run out of ideas what to do next. Banging pots hadn’t worked. A clean camp failed. So we sat still as statues in front of a blazing hot fire.
The bear first approached Karen. I could feel his hot breath. He paused behind her jacket, sniffing the fabric. The jacket must have absorbed our lentil dinner aromas. He then switched to her pants. He slowly opened his mouth and began placing it around her leg. Before he had a chance to test her leg any further, Karen let out a loud yelp. The bear jumped back.
Still not startled enough to retreat by Karen’s reaction, he turned his attention to the fire itself. Lurching his entire head between me and Karen, he leaned in towards the flames, his muzzle touching my arm. To our amazement, he was fascinated with the fire and wanted to explore it further. His huge face settled next to my shoulder, his eyes fixated on the fire. I stared at him, yet felt no fear. That surprised me. He leaned in towards the flames. As he felt the heat, he quickly pulled his head back beyond my arm, swiping his nose several times with his paw. He almost looked cute.
Having enough of the fire, he moved behind and around me to explore Sarajo, who was squeezed to my right. Still fascinated with the smell on our down jackets, he started nipping at her jacket’s fabric, but when she pulled quickly away, the bear decided we just weren’t that interesting nor edible.
At that point our bear moved to explore the tube tents. With our sleeping bags already laid out inside, he went back and forth, inside and out, while we tried to formulate a plan on how to get rid of this bear. By now it had been over an hour and I’d had enough.
I picked up some pebbles without moving from my log by the fire, and began throwing them into the woods. To my surprise, the ploy worked. The bear perked up his ears, looked towards the noise, and moseyed off to investigate. That bear got so curious he forgot all about us, continuing his exploration into the forest.
After a restless sleep, the next morning we quickly packed our gear and headed the remaining miles to the lake’s end for the ranger station. Karen said she was sure she saw that bear come around in the morning. Something seemed “off” about this bear. He had no fear of humans. None of the usual techniques worked to deter him.
The ranger station was plush. It had a bathroom with electric lights. We all went to wash up. Sarajo told us she started her period. Karen was complaining about a sore leg. Pulling her pants away exposed a huge black and blue mark in the shape of an upper and a lower jaw. The size of the bruise was shocking, it wrapped her entire thigh like a tattoo. Luckily the skin wasn’t broken. The bear barely clamped down, but that bruise was a mark of how powerful he was.
The ranger met us and we reported what occurred and how we handled it.
“You girls know there were two women killed by grizzles just a few years ago in Glacier. Pretty close to here too.”
What? Why would I know that? I’m seventeen, not from around here, and certainly don’t read the news on bear maulings.
He was descriptive and detailed in his story. ”They were killed on the same night, in different parts of the Park, by two different bears. One mauling was on a mountain, the other by a lake. Pulled them right out of their sleeping bags. The Park Service said both of these women were menstruating at the time. They say the smell of the blood drew the grizzlies in. The bears were thinking another bear was in their territory, so they killed them.”
If we weren’t scared by that black bear, we now were terrified with this new information. And Sarajo had just told us her menstrual cycle had started. Our plans to continue our backpack needed to change. We decided, for now, we needed to spend the next several days camped right next to the ranger station. The ranger said if we took day hikes and made lots of noise while we hiked, we’d probably be fine.
Every day it drizzled a fine mist. The skies were overcast. The enormous mountains surrounding the lake were shrouded in clouds. The dense forest cast off its wetness as we day hiked to pass the time, yelling as we hiked. It was awful. The whole reason we enjoyed the back country was the solitude, the quiet, the wildlife. Now all we could think about were grizzlies coming for Sarajo, probably around every corner. After five days, her menstrual cycle over, the three of us hiked the ten miles back to the Waterton Lakes Visitor Center. We surveyed the crowds of eager tourists, felt the pressure of the relentless rain and ominous clouds that enveloped the viewscape, and stuck out our thumbs to head south to Grand Teton National Park, a sunny country far from grizzly bears in 1972.
Only years later did I watch the Montana PBS special and realize we were dealing with a highly conditioned bear. We were just lucky that he wasn’t aggressive. During the feeding of black bears in Yosemite, there were many cases of injuries from frustrated bears.
As far as the myth of menstruation motivating the Glacier bear attacks, Smith writes this about it:
The August 1968 report concluded that, indeed, Michele Koons had been menstruating. Menstrual pads had been found in her personal effects. And it stated that Julie Helgeson, whose pack contained menstrual supplies, might also have been expecting the onset of menstruation. The document postulated that menstrual odor…may have attracted the bears that killed them.* [*It is worth mentioning that the Park Service’s report on the grizzly attacks of August 13, 1967, was written by men, who may not have known that many women have menstrual supplies in their personal effects whether they are menstruating or not.]
Following the Glacier report’s release the menstruation story took on a life of its own, as it was recited by rangers throughout the national parks. In some cases female Park Service employees were forbidden to work in areas where they might encounter bears during that time of the month. Later, an exhaustive study of bear attacks by Stephen Herrero…failed to find any correlation between menstruation and bear incidents.
Why is it worth reading and revisiting the details of this? Haven’t we learned the lessons of food storage? Although there are still plenty of incidents with grizzlies outside the National Parks getting into chicken coops, grain bins, or just unprotected trash, in general the Park Service, surrounding National Forests and Game Agencies have done a good job getting the information out and providing proper storage cans to protect food. Yosemite, that once had hundreds of bear incidents in the 1970s, (i.e. 979 in 1975 alone) now has less than 40 a year.
Besides the historical value of how we almost lost Yellowstone grizzlies due to mismanagement and political pressures, I think we are again at a crucial moment. Yellowstone grizzlies are back on the endangered species list, along with Montana’s bears, but that will not be for long. Montana is right now having discussions about delisting protocols. The lawsuit that put the bear back on the ESA will be challenged and eventually the bear will be off again, for better or worse. Acknowledging that we’ve succeeded in saving the bear from extinction in Yellowstone and the lower 48 is cause for celebration. But how we move forward is the question of the moment.
Bears need movement, corridors for genetic meet and greet. They need habitat preserved. And we need to do all we can, more than we even have, to protect them into the future. Montana growth bulges, how will we respect and give space to grizzlies?
I think one of the things this history shows us is how fragile grizzlies actually are. In my mind, our task now is to continue not to hunt grizzlies once they are delisted, to protect and acquire corridors which includes conservation easements on private lands, to educate newcomers and old timers alike in food protections (including livestock small and large), to appropriate funds and education for ranchers for non-lethal methods of livestock protections, and to support these efforts through general funds for game agencies so as not to rely on hunting licenses. Many groups have been working on all these points. Gaining public support and dollars, especially once the bear is delisted, is probably key.
Climate change along with population growth are growing new threats to the bear. We have seen in the past how quickly we almost lost him. It is possible to happen again.
A few days ago I found a pile of freshly collected dirt and pine needles under a large fir. It had the obvious signs of the only animal around here that covers its scat–felines.
I pushed aside the dirt and found cougar scat, so fresh that it was obvious this cat had just killed and eaten.
Fresh Cougar Scat
In researching my book, Ghostwalker, expert cougar biologist Toni Ruth described to me a typical lion-kill scene—the cougar will drag his kill usually under a tree and cover it. This aides in hiding the smell to keep scavengers away and helps keep it fresh.
A deer can take several days to consume. The cat eats, sleeps and sets up a latrine nearby. Sometimes cougars will just eat the organs and leave. They need the nutritious organs since they lost the ability somewhere in evolutionary time to convert carotenoids like beta carotene into Vitamin A.
Buck in velvet killed by mountain lion. Lion covered the kill after it had entered through the rib cage and eaten the organs
Armed with this knowledge, I began hunting around in an ever-widening circle looking for the kill site. Yet I found nothing. Giving up, I walked into the nearby forest where a light wet snow still covered the ground from the previous evening. There I found the cat’s prints.
I backtracked the cougar, who had crossed through several properties. I found the kill, a young buck, close to a garage whose owners are absentee most all the year.
I could see the cat had entered through the rib cage (typical) and only eaten out the organs so far. I ran home and placed a trail camera at the kill site.
My home is amongst a small cluster of 6-9 acre properties, all bordering National Forest. The valley is a patchwork of a few large ranches interspersed with public lands.
Most everywhere one looks is National Forest. A few miles directly west are the Absaroka mountains, the border of Yellowstone National Park. Deer are getting ready for their annual walk-about, following the green-up to the high country of Yellowstone.
They are a bit late this year as it’s been cold, green-up a bit late, and the snows still deep where they are headed, so bucks and does are still hanging around, many close to homes.
The Basin in early winter from the pass. Public lands in all directions.
Another neighbor who owns a large horse ranch told me they’d spotted a young grizzly scouting their hay fields not far from this cat’s hidden kill.
It got me wondering if the bear would bounce the cougar off his kill. Cougars are subordinate predators, and bears kick them off their kills 50% of the time. A bear can smell a carcass up to 20 miles away. I was betting on the bear.
Young grizzly in the meadows by my house
But I had other questions. First, this cougar seemed to be acting somewhat like cougars that live in urban-wildland settings–its latrine was about 1/4 mile away and not used over and over; it was coming and going to its kill, returning only under cover of darkness.
With most homeowners gone in early spring, I believe this cat would have acted different. But this is Memorial Day weekend, and some of the nearby vacation homes are occupied. Even the usually vacant property where the deer stashed the kill, the owners had come out from the east coast for the weekend. Additionally, noise factor on the dirt road for the holiday weekend was spooking the cat.
So I asked myself “Would this cat return to its kill to finish up or just be satisfied with the organs it already ate?” “Would the grizzly bear overtake it?” I waited a few days and went to retrieve the memory card in the camera.
3:45 a.m. First visitor: A lone coyote stays for about 15 minutes
First visitor to the kill site
4:30 a.m. Cougar shows up. Leaves 40 minutes later
9:28 p.m. Cougar returns. Leaves and comes back at 2:15 a.m. next morning.
Here the cougar is re-burying it’s kill with its back legs.
So after the initial kill and eating the organs, this cougar has returned three times over the course of two nights. The bear apparently has moved on down the valley, more interested in grass and grains than meat. If this was fall, that bear would have definitely been on the carcass during hyperphagia.
Today was warm. This carcass was buried in a wet swampy area amidst trees. The flies were on it, but there is still plenty of meat. So now I wonder if that cougar will return again, even with the flesh beginning to spoil a bit. Or will the bear be back? Coyotes for sure, and maybe some wolves will come by as they are feeding pups now. I added another camera that takes video, so, To be continued…
Reviewing my photos. 3rd day and it is warm (63 degrees). The cougar wasn’t able to cover the carcass very well due to location and there are flies on it, but still plenty of meat.
Last October our game warden was hunting in my valley when he was bluff charged by a sow grizzly bear. This bear had three cubs of the year (COY) by her side. She first gave a bluff charge, but then turned around, huffed, and came at the warden again. It was then that Chris Queen discharged his hunting rifle and killed her. After some deliberation about what to do with her young, small cubs, the Wyoming Game and Fish decided to let nature take its course, giving them a slim chance to make a den and survive the winter.
Grizzly cubs stay with their mother for about 2 1/2 years. Born blind and helpless in the winter den, cubs need to learn everything about bear survival from their mother. What foods to eat and where to find them. One fall I was in Tom Miner Basin. A pair of two year old grizzlies were roaming together. I was told they’d lost their mother the previous fall, but somehow managed to survive the winter and thrive through the summer. COY surviving without their mother is a rare event.
Tom Miner basin. Two cubs that survived when their mother was killed the previous year
When I heard about the sow’s death, my heart ached. I knew that bear. In fact, I’d just observed her and the cubs the week before. She was ambling across a pasture while the cubs pranced and played behind her. A few years ago, I watched her with two two-year-old cubs cross a meadow on the opposite side of the road. Every spring I would drive up the nearby drainage across from these meadows and find her tracks with cubs in tow. Little Sunlight, where the warden killed her, was not far from the area I’d observed the family. These were her haunts.
Mama grizzly with her three COY in September shortly before she was killed
I wondered if those cubs survived. The Game & Fish said they counted them in their tally as dead bears. How many bears died in a previous year would determine how many could be hunted in the following. I’m sure they ear-tagged them though. My plan was to drive up their mother’s favorite drainage and see if I could either spot the cubs, or at best, locate their tracks. Mom always walked down the dirt road, then veered off into the meadows at a predictable place. Since I saw her there (either by sight or by sign) early spring and late fall, I thought maybe she tended to den in that area so the cubs might too. At the very least, I felt this was an area the cubs knew. To my disappointment, after an extensive search, the only tracks I could see were the faint sign of an adult male. That doesn’t mean the cubs didn’t survive, but the odds are low.
Male griz about 12″ long and 5″ wide. He’s traveling towards the left of the print.
Just last week a person shot and killed a female sow in what they said was self-defense. She had several cubs with her. There was no mention in the article of the hiker carrying bear spray. It also appeared he was hiking alone, so his story can never be verified.
Last week I attended the very important Wyoming Game and Fish commission meeting. After hours of public comment, running 5:1 against a hunt, the commissioners voted unanimously within a few minutes to let the first grizzly hunt in the lower 48 in over 40 years proceed. We all knew the outcome of that vote before we even attended. Regardless, it was important we be heard. A spokesman for the tribes read a comment. The tribes requested that instead of a hunt, those bears be transferred to various tribal lands. If the Wyoming Game & Fish along with residents who say “have a hunt to reduce bear numbers” really believe that meme, then why not transfer bears to other areas where they once lived instead of killing them for trophy.
I was in Silver City, New Mexico last month. One of the last grizzly bears was killed in that area in the 1930s. An extensive study was done in the 1970s to see if the Gila National Forest would still support a small population of grizzlies. The study concluded that although there had been fire suppression which hindered some of their food sources, grizzlies could survive there. Since that time fires have come to the Gila and opened up the habitat. With livestock protections, grizzlies could once again roam the Gila National Forest and surrounding areas. The tribes could be the catalyst who help expand grizzlies into areas where they once lived where habitat is still suitable.
Yellow indicates grizzly range in 1860 in northern Mexico and SW USA
Wyoming has it backwards. The state feels it has to hunt the bear to reduce conflicts and bear population. Instead, they should be ramping up their efforts to teach people how to live around grizzly country, like carrying bear spray and protecting food sources. Plus they should cooperate with the tribes, transferring the 2018 hunt quota of 23 bears to tribal lands.
As William Wright so succinctly put it over a hundred years ago: “grizzly bears are minders of their own business.” We can honor that bear temperament by leaving them be.
Tired COY leans on Mama. I still haven’t seen any signs of the COY this spring
One of the special privileges of living in the Greater Yellowstone Region is seeing grizzly bears. In the fall, they are hungry preparing for hibernation. Rosehips, chokecherries and limber pine nuts lure them nearer to our homes, where they forage mainly at night to avoid people. In the early spring, when they emerge from their dens, young sprouts in the local pasture is roughage for their systems.
The presence of grizzlies makes a difference when I am hiking. I see their large tracks or fresh scat and remember to stay alert, awake, and aware. I carry my bear spray ‘weapon’, which I’ve never used on a bear, but have used on a bison, and it saved my life.
Print looks even larger because its in mud, but you can see his claws
Yet this rarity of wildness in our modern world carries with it great responsibility. If I want to live, work, and enjoy this last remaining wild place in our country (and also one of the last intact temperate ecosystems in the entire world), then I, like my cousin the grizzly, must make sacrifices and accommodations–small yet important and life saving for the bear. Special garbage cans; no bird feeders; Bar-B-Qing precautions; and most importantly, a tolerance for wildness. The Great Bear himself has been accommodating us humans for centuries, and mostly paying for it with his life.
Probably our best lesson in grizzly history comes from California, where the bear adorns their state flag. And the very best historical account of the Great State’s grizzlies is California Grizzly by Tracy Storer and Lloyd Tevis Jr. Storer painstakingly poured through every historical documented account of grizzly bears back to the Spanish Missions. He collects them together into an easily readable book first published in the 1950s. My paperback edition has a wonderful foreword by Rick Bass. I would say the only section not fully accurate is ‘Habits of California Grizzlies’, which includes erroneous data such as grizzlies being able to give birth at two or three years of age. Bringing grizzlies back from the brink here in Yellowstone has yielded much new data.
It’s unknown how many grizzlies were in California before the Spanish arrived and brought their cattle in the early 1700s. But Storer estimates California may have had as many as 10,000 bears in the early to mid-1800’s. California during Spanish rule was a different place than when American settlers came out during the gold rush.
During the Spanish period, not more than thirty such [land] grants were made; but after Mexico threw off her allegiance to the crown, the lavish generosity of the new provincial government brought some eight million acres into the possession of about eight hundred grantees. Each rancho, an empire unto itself, grazed thousands of cattle, sheep, and horses; supported hundreds of Indian servants, and was an economically independent, self-sustaining community.
In addition to cattle, wild horses brought in by the Spanish were so numerous that there were recorded herds twenty miles long. This overpopulation of horses depleted the range for livestock so thousands were killed, sometimes driven over cliffs or lanced by vaqueros. There were frequent slaughters of livestock during severe droughts, as well as natural deaths in these enormous herds. Missions and ranches had private butchering grounds, where only the choice meats were taken and the rest thrown in large piles. Grizzlies came at night to the ravines near the slaughter-corrals. Storer reports that in 1834 the missionaries, who anticipated secularization, disposed of 100,000 cattle just for their tallow and hides, leaving the rest for wild animals.
Rancho Cahuenga, near the location of the present Hollywood Bowl, as it appeared in January, 1847, at the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga.
This abundant new and easy source of protein is what fueled an accelerated bear population growth, so by the time early Americans began arriving, grizzly bears were commonly seen in large numbers foraging together.
In January, 1827, Duhaut-Cilly wrote that ‘bears are very common in the environs; and without going farther than five or six leagues [a league is about 3.5 miles] from San Francisco, they are often seen in herds”
George C. Yount, among the first American pioneers in California, arriving in February 1831 [of Yountville fame in Northern California] …said “they are every where–upon the plains, in the valleys, and on the mountains…so that I have often killed as many as five or six in one day, and it was not unusual to see fifty or sixty within the twenty-four hours.”
John Bidwell, in the Sacramento Valley in 1841, saw sixteen in one drove and said that “grizzly bear were almost an hourly sight, in the vicinity of the streams, and it was not uncommon to see thirty to forty a day”
While bears were a problem for the Spanish in the 1700s when trying to grow their herds, by the early 1800s cattle, sheep and horses were sculpturing every hill in the coastal region. The Spanish now viewed these lands as a playground, and grizzlies as part of a new sport.They roped grizzlies for bear-bull fights (another chapter in the book which is fascinating yet hard to read). These animal fights were even commonly conducted right after church in stoutly built arenas. But although the Spanish engaged in this cruel entertainment, California was underpopulated and grizzlies benefited from the increased food supply. When gold was discovered in 1849, a spectacular invasion of Americans came, and grizzlies were now doomed. In the span of just 25 years after California became a state in 1850, most all the grizzlies were gone. A few stragglers remained until early 1900s.
Storer includes so many fascinating facts about the bear in California. One would suspect that grizzlies rarely hibernated in that warm climate. Although no one was keeping scientific records, grizzlies were seen year-round except in the high Sierras, as evidenced from that above quote in January by Duhaut-Cilly. Probably females denned for part of the winter in order to give birth to their helpless newborns. Before white men cleared the land, grizzlies inhabited dense growths of trees, vines, and cattails that bordered lowland rivers and creeks. They pastured in tall grasses and clovers in the spring and ate acorns in the fall. Along the entire coast, grizzlies foraged on the continuous supply of marine animals that washed ashore, supplementing with berries from manzanita bushes that grew nearby. Tall manzanita thickets were common places for grizzlies to shelter, while place names remain as ghostly evidence such as Bear Valley, Big Bear, or Oso Rio.
What is to be learned from California–a land so rich and blessed with near perfect climate, where once grizzlies freely roamed? It demonstrates how quickly a large population of top predators can be extirpated; or how a dense, rapid growth in human population spells demise for the great bear; how abundant human food waste leads to habituated bears. And reading through the entire account in this book reminds me that Europeans have a very dark history when it comes to wildlife. The wanton slaughter and intolerance for grizzlies is still evident today when we see signs such as this one which seem to have one purpose in mind, without any appreciation nor feeling for the animal itself:
With a bit of mindfulness, we can enter fully into a new legacy, one that values wildness and wilderness, preserves vast lands for top predators like the Great Bear, sees the worth of connectivity between public and private lands, and makes good choices as to how we live with grizzlies in our midst. This is the future I envision for our country and it’s wonderful heritage of wildlife.
It was June of 2012 when a man approached me on the top of Dead Indian Hill asking for directions to Parker Peak. At first I was perplexed where this Peak actually was. There are a lot of famous Peaks in the Greater Yellowstone that people come to climb. Parker was not one of them. Then he explained it was at the end of Sunlight road in the Park and I knew it was in Hoodoo Basin. He had a strange urgency about him, and seemed driven by an unseen need to get to this insignificant peak.
The hike to Hoodoo Basin, where Parker Peak and Hoodoo Peak form part of the bowl, is epic. I’ve been wanting to do it for ten years from the end of Sunlight Road., and finally completed it this week. It’s six hard uphill miles and 2500′ gain to the Park Boundary. Then another five miles of high meadows and up and down to the campsite below Parker Peak. The Peak is just a ‘run-up’, nothing special, except this year the only water source was a small pond generated by the last bits of a snowfield. The pond edge was laden with tracks of elk, deer, sheep and bear.
In the shadow of the eerie formations of the Hoodoos, I told my companions the story of the driven man who needed to get to Parker Peak (emphasizing Paaarr-ker said in an ominous voice). Based on some observations at the top of Parker, below is what I imagined his story might be….
See my notes on the Basin at the end of the Story…
Parker Peak
Parker Peak….
I heard it held a mysterious Presence, a palpable vibration, an unmistakeable aura. Where I heard this, I do not remember. But it all began with the dreams. The first dream was of a mountain made of crystals, a mountain that could heal. On the very summit of the mountain peak I saw, in my dream vision, a large petrified stump. I touched the stump and found its top was broken. I pushed the lid aside to reveal a hole that went deep underground. So I climbed into that dark hole, deeper and deeper, till I was within a maze of tunnels. Almost spontaneously a little person appeared. I had no fear. It was if I knew this person, yet I’d never seen him before.
“Come, follow me” the little person said. He guided me through the underground passage, and although it was dark, a soft greenish-blue light emanated from his body, illuminating the tunnels. The little man stopped at a shaft of light that shone from an opening above. On the ground before us were bones, big piles of bones. A natural trap cave where animals had fallen inadvertently into from high above.
“Do you know whose bones these are?”
“No” I answered.
“Bones of animals past that once roamed these mountains. You were once here, hunting Short-faced Bears and Cheetahs.”
We continued on till the cave passage opened wide, revealing extensive views of deeply cut valleys and steep ravines.
The little man pointed. “This is the Center of the World, formed by Fire and Ice.”
I looked out over the land. It was dry, smoke was blowing in from different fires. The air was hot.
It was then I awoke in a cold sweat.
Using the Internet as my guide, I came to the conclusion that what I saw that had been formed of Fire and Ice was Yellowstone Park, and my viewpoint was Parker Peak. Parker Peak held a mystery meant for me to solve. Now I had to go there.
_________________
June. I packed up my car and drove the twenty hours from Chicago to Cody. From my research, the shortest route to Parker Peak was from the end of a dirt road called Sunlight. It looked easy from the map, maybe ten miles. I planned on a day hike. I’d take some water and a lunch, hike in an out during the longest day of the year so I had plenty of daylight. Now just to find Sunlight Basin. I inquired at a Cody, WY gas station and they directed me to Chief Joseph Highway. The highway climbed out of the high desert into the mountains.
This must be it. I thought as I approached 9000 feet. I turned onto a dirt road near the top of the summit. I knew Parker Peak was around 10,000. Easy climb in and out I figured. The road ended after a mile and I saw a distinct trail. I parked and began my hike. It was then I saw two locals hanging around a sign that said ‘Wilderness Boundary’.
“Is this the Sunlight Road?” I enquired of them.
“No. Sunlight Road is another seven miles down the mountain.”
I told them I was off to Parker Peak from the end of the road for a day hike.
“You have to get past the Bear Gate, but that’s not open to cars for another month. So you’ll have an extra 5 or 6 miles of hiking to the Hoodoos. Why do you want to go there.”
“Just need to get to Parker Peak.”
“Well, you can’t make it in a day hike. Do you have bear spray with you?”
“Huh? Do I need that?”
“Big grizzly area back there. Lots of other peaks around here that are nicer and accessible now. Why don’t you go to the Beartooths? Or climb some other peaks in the Park? Parker is just a walk-up. Not that interesting.”
“Just gotta get to Parker Peak.” How could I tell them. They just wouldn’t understand the magic of this mountain. “I’ll come back in August.”
It’s been three years since that day in June and I still haven’t made it to Parker. But the dreams keep coming and someday, someday, I just know, I’ll get there.
_______________
At the top of Parker Peak there is a large petrified tree stump. And the summit has rock striations made of clear crystals.
_______________
The Hoodoo Basin is laden with chippings of obsidian flakes everywhere. My friends hiked up Hoodoo Peak, a scramble on talus which I do not like. Then they easily walked the ridge about 1.5 miles to Bootjack Gap, the passage between the Crandall drainage (Papoose trail) and the Park. Large obsidian pieces were scattered all over the ridge. Hoodoo to Sunlight and Miller Creek to Crandall Creek were hard-trodden Indian trails for thousands upon thousands of years. Native peoples traveled to Obsidian Cliff (and other cherished spots for stone to work) in spring to obtain new material for atlatls and later for arrowheads. Just like the deer and elk, they ‘surfed the green’ or followed the green-up, gathering roots and plant material. In the fall, they probably stayed in Hoodoo Basin to gather pine nuts from the Whitebark Pines there.
Today about 70-80% of those Whitebarks are dead, stricken down by beetles. (See photo below). The native peoples are gone, but the grizzlies are not and they are dependent on these nutritious high-fat nuts to make brown fat for the long winter. It was terribly sad to see so many dead trees, and once again made me think about the future fate of the grizzly with a delisting and subsequent hunt so close to being approved.
In addition to obsidian material everywhere, I understand there were at least forty wikiups observed by Superintendent Norris when he visited the Hoodoos or ‘Goblin Land’ as he called it. These wikiups are no longer standing but still visible. I searched for them but was unable to find any, although I saw one that looked like a possibility. The wood would be down in a pile and very old. According to Orrin and Lorraine Bonney’s classic ‘Guide to the Wyoming Mountains and Wilderness Areas’, in 1880 when Norris and companions explored the Hoodoo area they
…found on the North side of [Parker Peak] a favorite campsite of raiding Indians with its commanding view of all approaches and handy striking distance to the high passes of Crandall Cr. He also found gory remnants of border raids–white folks’ blankets, clothes, china, bedding in & around the 40 rotting lodges.
In the four days we were in the Basin, we did not see another person. The country was very dry, so this usual summer feedgrounds for elk were barren of elk and deer. Only old scat was around. We did see evidence of one grizzly bear and bighorn sheep. I also had an experience with five Short-eared Owls flying low over my head that rates among my top ten wildlife encounters.
It was an amazing journey. Worth the hard work.
Park Boundary Line. Looking out into the Lamar Drainage
Some of the Hoodoos in the Foreground. Hoodoo Peak in the background
The Headwaters of the Lamar River. Smoke from fires makes the haze.
Muddy Creek is an access trail to Granite Lake in the Beartooth Mountains on the Wyoming side. Although I have done a lot of hiking and backpacking in the Beartooths, I have to admit I haven’t been to Granite Lake, a 228-acre subalpine lake, among the largest in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Most people approach the lake through Clay Butte, which is also a trail into Martin Lake Basin and the Beartooth backcountry. Yet since I heard that Granite Lake is a popular horse, fishing, and camping area, I’ve avoided it. Maybe this summer I’ll do the 9 mile roundtrip hike there.
Muddy Creek is one means of entry, and mostly because of its apt name, I haven’t been on that trail either. This being a drier year, I thought I’d try it for a day hike. This is not a trail description entry, but some observations along the stretch I did. But for those interested, the trail is flat, skirting an extensive meadow, until it reaches the mouth of the canyon to Granite Lake. At that point it begins to gently climb into the narrow drainage. I turned around at the incline point and end of the meadows.
This is a beautiful hike that enters the wilderness boundary in about .08 miles from the trailhead and stays in the trees and shade.
Wilderness boundary. Muddy Creek
Muddy Creek used to be a popular trail in the day. You can see old logging cuts throughout, before the area became Wilderness. I’ve read old records where some old-timers considered Ghost Creek (just south of the highway) and east Muddy Creek (north of the highway where the trail is), their private hunting grounds. In fact, I was going around some downed timber when I discovered, about 2 miles up and on the trail, an old trapping snare.
The meadows, in reality, are a wetland full of willows. Fresh moose tracks are everywhere–prime summer habitat for them. But the real surprise is the amount of grizzly bear scat. I’m used to hiking in bear country, but I’ve never seen so much bear evidence as there is on this trail. In the first mile through forest, I’d safely guess that there was a large pile of bear scat every 20 feet and most of it fairly fresh. In fact I saw the freshest pile I’ve ever seen on a hike, one that was still wet and steaming.
Front foot with claw marks
Bear scat still wet and steaming
I started looking for bear rubs along the trail and found many. Called rub trees, it’s unclear why they use them. Probably as a way of scenting and getting a good back scratch at the same time. Once you’ve seen a rub tree, you’ll know how to look for them. Most I’ve found are on or near human trails. Bears use human trails too. I’ve found several where a trail blaze is in the tree and a bear scratches or rubs that tree. You know who is The Boss then.
Rub trees will have a smooth side to them and will not have lichen there. Look from the side and you will see the bear’s fur. Cattle especially also rub trees so learn to distinguish the fur. Ungulates, especially elk, will sometimes rub and horses as well. But once you’ve seen bear fur, you’ll know it.
Rub Tree viewed from afar. You can see it has a smooth appearance on one side.
Same rub tree viewed up close so you can see bear fur on it
Ungulates have hollow hairs. When bent they are stiff and form a sharp bend. Bear’s have finer fur. Try to distinguish which side of a hair is the root. Then look at the opposite end. Most grizzly hairs will have a light tip to them–thus the ‘grizzled’ look. Here is a good photo from USF&W.
It’s more likely that your rub tree fur will look like this:
Some of the fur I pulled off the tree
View from about halfway up the vast meadows
A few blooming flowers:
New flower for me. Wood Nymph Moneses uniflora
One of my favorites. Thalictrum occidentalis. There are many beautiful Thalictrums in the landscape market.
A real plus for the bears is that I can see this will be a super berry year. Last year all their fall foods were lean and so people were seeing more bears on the edges of the ecosystem. This year my Chokecherries will have a bounty year, and all the flower evidence for Raspberries and Strawberries indicates a boom cycle. In addition, I have not seen any Buffalo berries on plants for many years. But this year the beginning of the fruit is evident.
Shepherdia canadensis. The berries are tiny green now. Red in the fall and I like the taste
And finally, my plea once again for the Great Bear. We are in the midst of a USF&W delisting process for Grizzly Bears which means the states will be managing and hunting them. Walking on the Muddy Creek trail, seeing so much bear sign, is not an indication, as some people have expressed, to be scared and hunt bears so they will avoid people.
Instead, the Great Bear is a mnemonic, a reminder to stay alert and awake. His presence signals I need to hike as a ‘walking meditation’, being fully Present in the moment. Thus, the grizzly is a Spiritual Bear. Let us all honor the Grizzly bear in that manner.
Grizzly Bears are sacred to the tribes. We need to all think about them in this manner.
Several years ago I came across a small rock cave in a narrow drainage high up near a sheer rock face. There was cougar scat outside in a large cougar latrine. I crawled inside and peeked around. At the very back of the cave, some animal had made a nice bed out of soft debris. You could see the large rounded depression where the animal had rested.
Over the years I sometimes passed by this cave and wondered if a cougar might have used it as a den. I showed a photo of the rock enclosure to Toni Ruth, cougar biologist. She speculated that probably it had been used by many cougars as a resting place, but did not look like a den site normally does.
The cave sits high above a small valley used by many hunters in the fall because of it’s easy access and good game. Yet the placement of this rock site was too steep, and obscure, for humans to pass by. The only reason I happened to find it was because sometimes I hike in crazy and steep places just for fun, and I like to follow deer and elk trails.
After several years, in the spring of 2015 I decided to place a trail camera on the cave. I was deeply involved in a personal cougar study, and wanted to settle once and for all–den or lay. I hiked to the spot in May of 2015, placed one camera, and didn’t return for several months. What I found completely surprised me.
During the summer our elk,deer and bear travel into the high country and the predators follow. The valley is fairly quiet then and so my camera recorded lots of squirrel, pack rat and rabbit activity. In the winter, this particular area is closed to human presence. Before the closure, I hiked to the cave once again, and place my best trail camera, a Reconyx that takes film and stills, at the site. The camera sat till the reserve opened again in the spring.
I put together this short film that documents a year at the rock cave. Enjoy.
I am listening to a wonderful interview podcast, in two parts, of Charlie Russell on the Grizzly Beat, a blog by Louisa Wilcox. If you haven’t heard of Russell, this is your chance. Russell tells stories of raising cubs in Kamchatka Russia along with sitting on a log in a Canadian forest with a well-viewed female grizzly. I learned more about how to behave around bears by watching Russell’s body language than any book.
Charlie Russell in Kamchatka
Russell candidly talks about how North American wildlife bear management long ago decided the best way to have bears around was to teach people to be afraid of them, and likewise to instill fear in bears of people. But Russell was interested in what bears were really like, and knowing that bears have personalities, he wanted to understand them. Russell spent ten summers in Kamchatka raising bear cubs and living with over 500 bears in the area. He is the only person to have successfully re-introduced cubs into the wild.
Russell’s story is told on these podcasts as well as his video East of Eden. Bears are highly intelligent. If they are treated peacefully, in general they act peacefully towards humans. They know, Russell says, that humans control the habitat that they need. Living with bears is something people can choose to do. It’s not a bear problem, but a people problem Russell say. If a person decides to live in bear country peacefully, the bears will respond in kind. Given that, Russell advices when hiking in bear country to carry bear spray, especially where bears have been taught to fear people. If and when hunting begins in the Northern Rockies, Russell says, this will only exacerbate bears distrust and dislike of people.
Grizzly minding his own business
Russell’s comment on how bear management today is about fear is something I’ve long thought about. All the available literature on bears, especially grizzly bears, is about bear attacks. The Park requires every backcountry overnight camper to watch a 45 minute video on bears (which is good). The video is all about protecting oneself from bears and what to do in a bear encounter. People management is a good thing (bear spray, food storage, posturing around bears, hiking in groups, making noise, etc), but none of this is about bears, but about fearing bears. We don’t really try to ‘know’ bears. Our present culture is just about separating ourselves from the natural world and fearing bears.
My own closest encounter with a bear took place in 1972. Not a grizzly, but a very large black bear. I was in high school, during summer break, hiking in Waterton-Glacier International Park from the Canadian side. I tell that story here in detail and why I wasn’t afraid. It’s a good lesson in how people and bears can read each other.
Personally, I feel that Russell is one of the few people today that truly understands bears. He is not a scientist, but more of an old fashioned naturalist. Russell owns a ranch next to Waterton Park in Canada that was homesteaded by his grandfather. Long ago he pioneered putting out dead cattle on his side of the Park border in the spring to give hungry bears emerging from dens some much needed protein. Neighboring ranchers feared that the bears would adapt to eating cattle. But instead of this happening, the fed bears moved on and cattle depredation decreased. Soon the wildlife managers were putting road-killed deer and elk carcasses instead.
Please listen to this amazing Bear Whisperer. Enjoy.
This past Monday night I attended a Wyoming Game and Fish (WG&F) informational meeting on my state’s proposed management plan once grizzly bears are delisted from the Endangered Species Act. I’ve also read a few of the comments on the USF&W site (you can comment here on the Feds proposed rule).
Although hunting was not discussed by the WG&F (that’s for the Wyoming Game Commission to decide), hunting will definitely be allowed once bears are delisted and, according to the Feds rule, over 100 bears can be killed right away! Some of the comments in favor of delisting at the meeting went like this:
Hunt them so they will become afraid of people. I’m afraid to walk in the woods now.
Hunt them so we can have a trophy hunt. These funds from hunting tags ($600 instate; $6000 out of state) support wildlife.
Bears have become a nuisance on my ranch. There are too many bears.
The Proposed Rule would allow a hunt on Greater Yellowstone Grizzly Bears
The meeting was presented as a science-based plan. The comments were based on emotion. What was missing was the Spirit of the Bear, the living sentient being.
Grizzly Bears were once revered by the tribes. Some tribes hunted them, others never did. But they all respected the bear, told stories about them, dressed up like bears, and even had secret bear societies. To dream about bears was sacred and special. Bears represented renewal, death and rebirth and transformation. Bears were numinous beings, powerful, respected, honored, imitated. This is what I did not hear in the meeting. I heard fear, and I heard annoyance, but our modern-day stories have no room for the sacredness of these animals.
In the lower forty-eight, 99% of the U.S. has no grizzly bears. If you like to recreate without ‘fear’, there are plenty of beautiful places to do so. Yet here in the Greater Yellowstone, one has an opportunity to experience the pressures a top predator calls you to: ‘Be awake’, ‘use all your senses’. Hiking and recreating in Grizzly Bear country is a privilege, even a type of spiritual retreat. All your senses are heightened–not in fear– but awake and conscious. As I’ve said in my book The Wild Excellence:
To walk with the Great Bear one must be alert, fully awake and aware. With the Great Bear around, you cannot walk lost in thought, or conversation. You must be Present. This alone is a gift that only another top predator can bring to man. The grizzly bear’s gift to man is the Power of the Present Moment. The Present is his present to us. He presses it upon us by circumstance. Men do not give themselves that gift by choice. That is the gift of the grizzly.
One thing I’ve learned about bears hiking in these mountains, and living with bears, is that Grizzlies are minders of their own business. In general they are solitary animals (except for moms and cubs. That is why a dead bear will not teach other bears to fear people), mostly vegetarian, and want nothing to do with humans. They are highly intelligent and never forget.
Grizzlies will not be tolerated outside the DMA (the dark black line)
One fall I came upon an illegal outfitter’s hunting camp. The camp had a lot of burnt food trash in the fire pit. I cleaned it all up and packed it out. The next fall I hiked there again. I wanted to see if they had re-set up their camp. Although the camp was clean and no one had used it since I’d been there, I found piles of steaming fresh grizzly scat. The bears had found it the year before too and never forgot.
Trashy fire pit
I moved to my cabin, smack in the middle of grizzly country, where problem bears were relocated to, ten years ago. At that time I knew nothing about grizzlies. I too thought a hunt season (bears were delisted for a short time in 2007) would make the forest safer for myself. But I’ve changed my mind after living around bears. These are magnificent animals. So intelligent that a hunt on them would be like killing my brother. I honor and respect the Bear and although delisting may be warranted at this time, hunting should never be allowed.
We need new stories about Grizzlies, stories that tell of their intelligence, magnificence, and personality. Maybe instead of a PowerPoint show, the WG&F biologists should have dressed up like the Bear, did some dancing, and shared food. I think we all might have learned a lot more about bears.
But although the Spanish engaged in this cruel entertainment, California was underpopulated and grizzlies benefited from the increased food supply. When gold was discovered in 1849, a spectacular invasion of Americans came, and grizzlies were now doomed. In the span of just 25 years after California became a state in 1850, most all the grizzlies were gone. A few stragglers remained until early 1900s.
Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces 