The sound of the park ranger’s irate voice rang out in early morning, last week in the Glacier National Park. From inside our tent, which was soaked by the previous evening’s heavy rainstorm, we could hear the women walking through the camp that we’d hastily abandoned when the drops began to fall the night before. With the storm coming down, we’d quickly tossed everything into our truck in an attempt to honor the campground’s strict rules dedicated to reducing bear-human interactions and protecting the park’s bears.
Evidently in our haste, we’d missed a few things. “What’s this red cooler?” she asked, finding the cooler with a couple of floating bottles of soda, beer and water we’d forgotten. “Bears can get in here and eat the glass —you’ll be fine but it will kill a bear.” My husband called out from the tent that we must have missed the cooler as he wiggled out of his sleeping bag and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “You missed a RED cooler!” the ranger admonished, scathingly. “And what about this bottle of sodapop in the back of the pick-up?” Duly chastened, we set about cleaning up camp—and were thankful we didn’t get the $50 ticket the ranger had waiting.
Bears in Glacier National Park are serious business and the officials are diligent in protecting the bears that inhabit the 1.4 million acre park. A federal study found in 2008 that endangered grizzly populations have rebounded slightly in recent years, with an estimated 765 grizzly bears living in northwest Montana, in places like Glacier National Park. To protect this endangered population, the park rangers have the power to hand out a hefty $50 fine for doing things like leaving out grills and coolers, keeping toothpaste in your tent, burning trash or food waste and other bear-attracting activities. The park website talks extensively about how to be prepared for recreating in bear country without endangering the bruin inhabitants. The method has worked—since 1995, there has been only one human-caused grizzly mortality in Glacier National Park, which hosts 1.7 to 1.9 million visitors every year.
All this came to mind as I read this morning’s ADN story about a man who shot four bears in his front yard (three cubs and a sow) on July 6 and then denounced the misdemeanor charges brought up against him by Alaska Division of Wildlife as “frivolous.” He shot the sow through window, then two cubs as they attempted to enter his cabin. The fourth cub was shot as it stood over the sow. The man said he felt in danger for his life.
I obviously don’t know the circumstances of this incident. It could be that he left out a cooler accidentally like we did and paid the price of four bears attempting to break into his home—a truly frightening experience.
But it also leads me to something about Alaska that I truly don’t get—on one hand, we venerate these animals. You’d be hard-pressed to find an example of Alaskana without the grizzly bear featured prominently on it. These animals are the symbol of the state where untamed wilderness is what appeals to so many of its residents. On the other hand, many Alaskans treat animals like bears as disposable if they’re inconvenienced—like getting rid of trash that would attract a bear or putting away the cooler. There’s a weird refusal by residents to recognize the lessons learned everywhere else in the world—that animal populations can be made extinct by the actions of hum an beings.
The lesson wasn’t learned in Montana and now there is careful stewardship to maintain their bear populations in places Glacier National Park. Will Alaska bring its own bear population to the brink of extinction before federal officials mandate that we pay attention?
I hope we’re smarter than that.
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