AND A BEAR CAME TO THE DOOR….

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in that fictitious Alaskan village Cicely on the old TV show Northern Exposure. During the beginning sequence of the show, an enormous moose makes himself quite comfortable ambling right down Main Street. Same here in Yellowstone but it's an bull elk instead. Dr. Joel, the main character of NE, was often startled by bear or some other forest critter. Happens every day here, too.  I think I remember an episode about an enamored moose or elk and how determined it was to get some. Happens right outside my dorm window on a nightly basis right now with the elk in rut.

Meanwhile, south from here a bit, a bison died near the road and the Rangers, rather than moving the carcass, are simply monitoring the area to keep us stupid humans from interfering with it. They realize that a bison carcass represents perhaps dozens of meals for certain animals in the Park – wolf, bear, ravens and other carnivorous creatures. Unfortunately, the likelihood of a lot of wolf and bear activity draws perhaps the stupidest mammal in the Park – the tourist.

There are signs all over the place warning tourists of the danger of getting too close to the wildlife. They do it anyway. Stories of the tourist trying to place his infant on the back of a bison are everyday stuff here. I have seen tourists positioning their family members with their backs to the elk cows in order to get a picture of their loved one 'with an elk'. Even well-informed employees sometimes get in trouble during the rut, though. A dorm mate barely made it into a Ranger’s truck when a bull elk decided he wanted her out of the way RIGHT NOW! And she was just walking in the neighborhood.

Keeping safe from rutting elk is a serious business here at Mammoth. One of the dorms had a non-working handicapped access door pretty much all summer. After repeated requests to maintenance to no avail, that got fixed when security determined that the residents needed all exit and entrance doors to work the first time every time just in case a resident needed to run full tilt to gain the reasonably secure access of the dorm. Rutting bull elk can be pretty single-minded and go crazy if they perceive their efforts are being thwarted.

Occasionally, one of the protected huge mammals in the Park goes walkabout. That’s what is happening right now in Gardiner, the gateway village for the North Entrance and the ‘bedroom community’ for full-timers who work in the northern parts of the Park. Last week, I was sitting on the deck of the Iron Horse Saloon, overlooking the Yellowstone River, minding my own business, reading my book and having one of my favorite brews, Kettlehouse Cold Smoke. A few minutes before when I came into town to get groceries, I’d seen people hanging over the bridge which connects the north and south sides of the canyon that splits the tiny community. I looked beyond the bridge and saw what looked like a small black bush moving along the sides of the canyon. The black bush turned out to be a black bear, perhaps 3 or 4-years-old, munching his way down the banks, most likely on a quest to fatten himself up for his winter’s sleep. Plenty of rosehips and chokecherries along that bank.

Now I’m plenty used to putting the large mammals in the Park in the most important position on the totem pole. I stop for bison crossing the road (one of the bulls can crush a car). I’m careful not to intrude on the space of a elk cow and her baby (I know how touchy young mothers are). I’ve recently been awakened every night to the bugling call of the randy elk bulls announcing “Come and get it, ladies. I’m a fine, fine bull!” But this bear has caught not only my imagination but that of the residents of Gardiner as well.

To be honest, by now most of them probably wish the bear would figure out he needs to move right along. The more he stays the more likely he is to behave in a way that would cause concern among the community. Neighbors are not letting their dogs roam free in their fenced yards. One of the employees of the Park who lives right next to the Yellowstone in Gardiner was sunbathing in his very own yard and fell asleep only to wake up to the bear licking his toes. Now THAT can wake you up fast! Rumor has it that he may or may not have needed to change his shorts.

The bear seems quite curious, peeking into residents' windows, including my boss’s window and scaring the heck out of her kitty. Kitty began hissing and screeching, in turn scaring the bear so much he leaped right over my boss's fence and out of the yard. At least he’s sensible about cats. Right now, the residents seem pretty happy to leave the little guy to his foraging but if Fluffy comes up missing, the bear will get the blame. If a car or house is broken into, the bear will get the blame. And that will be the tipping point between their approval of or acquiescence to the bear’s presence and their determination to rid the neighborhood of the bear.

In the Park, if a bear is expressing him or herself in beary ways that could hurt the tourists, Rangers handle bear activity by closing the area to tourists and backpackers. Not ideal but a good way to let the bear be all beary without interference. In the spring, large swaths of the backcountry are off limits as ‘bear management areas’ until the bears have had a chance to wake up a little, get their cubs organized into a family unit, eat a little and generally get a little less grouchy. You know how it is those first few months of having a newborn.

There is one huge difference between large animals being themselves in the Park and awkwardly moving their gangly way through town or snacking their way up the banks of the village’s river. Here in Yellowstone National Park, the elk, bear, bison, mountain lions, wolves and all the other critters that may startle, scare or even maim are protected by a law that is well over 100 years old. No kidding. The Park was created when Ulysses S. Grant signed the legislation declaring Yellowstone a National Park in 1872 but it took another 22 years before the “Act to Protect the Birds and Animals in Yellowstone National Park” was passed. A young whippersnapper of a Congressman, Theodore Roosevelt, had worked tirelessly writing bill after bill after bill but it took a particularly grizzly act of poaching, and its wide publication in the ‘liberal media’, to turn the tide of Congress.

And so today the creatures in the Park are the number one priority. Rangers only wade in to Mother Nature’s business if humans are likely to be injured or killed. And even then, the Ranger is most likely to make noise, shout, use bear spray, use his or her vehicle to 'herd' the animal away from populated areas, place him or herself between the animal and the tourist – anything to keep the animals safe and alive. Every man-caused death of a large mammal here is reason for the Rangers to mourn. So, every time I walk out of my dorm, I know the elk standing in my way has the right-of-way and I need to turn around, walk back upstairs and down the other side.

Right outside the Park is another matter. A geopolitical boundary on a map makes a protected species a hunted one. There is no giant fence around this enormous 2.2 million acre wilderness. Protected animals leaving the Park and getting shot right across the border is a serious matter and there are lots of sides to this issue.

Hunters claim they have the right to hunt bear and other Park-protected species outside of the Park and are given permits to do so. Generally, these are responsible hunters who don’t shoot at pregnant females or juveniles. They mind the hunting regulations of the state in which they live. They most likely dress or have the meat dressed for their own or others’ dinner tables.

Others would point to the senselessness of an animal being safe on one side of a line on a map and immediately in danger on the other. There are even groups (kind of like those leatherback turtle rescuers) that work to keep the animals within the boundaries of the Park because a bear or bison right outside the Park’s boundaries can easily wind up in someone’s freezer at best or a trophy by some handsome fireplace at worst.

The fact is that every single person coming to Yellowstone yearns to have an interaction with wildlife.  And nearly every one of them is granted his or her wish. And every single interaction with humans makes it more and more possible that one of the wild large animals, leaving the Park, becomes even more likely to be hunted instead of protected. Inside the ‘safe protection zone’ recommended by the Rangers, seeing humans, cars and so forth teaches the animals they are safe around these two-legged mammals.

I can’t honestly take a side on this issue. I don’t hunt but I eat bison regularly and have found elk to be quite tasty. I eat fish a lot. But I prefer range (or forest) fed meat than that red-dyed stuff you find in your grocery’s meat section. I think it’s healthier and, certainly, a forest or wilderness habitat is more humane for what will become my dinner than most of the meat in the grocery meat section.

What I CAN tell you for sure is that every single interaction with wild animals makes them at least a little less wild. Every single interaction makes them less scared of humans and more likely to stay instead of run. I try to limit my interaction with animals because of this, watching them the very respectful distance of at least a half-football field. I bought a telephoto lens so if I wanted to get the detail, I could.

The issue of hunting game is an issue each one of us has to decide ourselves. I personally believe that anyone who enjoys eating meat is being illogical at least and hypocritical at most if they call a responsible hunter an animal killer. Yeah. So is the butcher that cuts up the overfed beef fattened up in an impossibly crowded feed lot then.

However, I certainly can understand a person choosing to not eat meat because it is the life of one species over another. I respect that. Especially after watching the wildlife here in the Park. Wild creatures are absolutely amazing. I am happy there is a Park where they can still be wild. But it takes our cooperation. Come, come to the Park. But bring a pair of binoculars and stay far away from the critters if you can. If you don’t and they are game meat, it could cost them their adorable lives.