A friendly oaf suggested I pack a .45 Magnum while camping in Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks, in the event bears troll our campsite. I could protect myself and my family and blow them away, he suggested. In fact, Yellowstone bans firearms from campsites, and pepper spray, which we did bring with us, provides a defense against (extremely rare) bear attacks. Especially if one follows the rules to store food securely away from the campsite, one probably does not need to worry about bears. We met a woman working on the bear DNA project, who reminded us that WE are generally the INTRUDERS in bear habitat, not the other way around. I came away from our trip with a fascination and affection for than fear of bears, along with respect for keeping a healthy distance from them. Nevertheless, like many tourists, we went out of our way to try and spot bears. I heard several fascinating stories:
- how Johan Otter, a California man visiting Glacier, hiking on a trail near Mt. Grinnell, instinctively put himself between his daughter and a Grizzly bear, in 2005, and was attacked (LA Times piece). After a long and hard recovery, he returned to Glacier in 2006 to take the same hike again. This is a very powerful piece of journalism, including a slide show of incredible pictures and an audio interview with Otter.
- how the National Park Service at Glacier and Yellowstone have, over the years, has changed how it manages the public's interactions and encounters with bears, as illustrated in this brief movie on the NPS web site.
- I also enjoyed this "electronic field trip" on the bears of Yellowstone, which begins with this quote from John Muir:
Bears are made of the same dust as we, and breathe the same winds and drink of the same waters. A bear’s days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are overdomed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with heart pulsings like ours, and was poured from the same First Fountain.
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