Life, Death, Yellowstone

Very much on my mind is the still-unfolding August 7 incident in Yellowstone National Park  in which a park contractor, Lance Crosby, moving through bear country apparently observing none of the standard precautions, was caught, killed, partly consumed, and his remains cached by a well-known, well-loved female grizzly bear known affectionately as “Blaze.” The moniker refers to a distinctive streak of light-colored of fur from spine to belly just behind her front legs. 

After Crosby’s mutilated body was found, Blaze and her two cubs, still in the vicinity,  were quickly culvert-trapped, and through DNA and other tests, confirmed unequivocally as having been the only bears at the scene of his demise.  With this incontrovertible evidence, Blaze was promptly "humanely removed," i.e., euthanized, per park policy. She will be necropsied, which will include meticulous analysis of the contents of her digestive system, and a detailed forensic report will be made public, when all that can be learned from her body has been.

Her still-young cubs are spending the rest of their lives at the Toledo Zoo. Deprived of a normal life at large in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, with all its attendant hazards and risks to long life and reproductive success, they will instead learn that humans are beneficent sources of a plentiful year-round diet (and they won’t undergo the annual metabolic stress of wintering), and they will be sheltered from predators, medicated as needed, mentally and physically stimulated, and contribute, however unknowingly, to the evolving science of captive wildlife husbandry. And above all, if the zoo does it right, they will serve to educate the public about Ursus arctos horribilis, which recent events amply demonstrate should be a very high priority. Many people have expressed disgust for this solution, but while rehabilitation to the wild – that in this case would mean raising them in captivity and guiding them the best humans can in the art of “being bear” until they are sufficiently mature to be released in early summer 2017 -- was considered, apparently no capable facility has room for them.   

There has been enormous angry outcry about the park’s actions, as Blaze was one of those wild animals that had, over her 20 years, become habituated to the presence of human beings. She was observed and photographed by many, including people I know personally, and was an exceptionally beautiful and charming bear, no question. Every few years she bore a litter of adorable cubs, and demonstrated her prowess as a mother by the high survival rate of her fragile babies. People formed very strong emotional attachments to her as she allowed them insights into her wild life. Whether those insights were always correctly interpreted by those who loved and admired her is something worth questioning, but regardless, a large and vocal contingent believe that she should have been allowed to live.

I do not, but not because I haven’t formed my own attachments to similar bears, like 399 in Grand Teton National Park, but because in reality, other options for a preventing a 20 year old wild bear from repeating this behavior were non-existent. Relocating her with her cubs to an environment far from human habitation – say, the North Woods of Canada – would have been the second best ideal to leaving them free in Yellowstone, but bears are notorious for making their way back to their home territory even from a thousand miles distant. What’s more, inadvertent release in territory already claimed by other grizzlies would have resulted in their deaths. Confining her in a zoo or sanctuary would have been a cruel prison sentence indeed, and possibly extraordinarily risky for those charged with her care. 

The rationale (among some if not many) for destroying a bear that has fed on a person because it develops a “taste” for human flesh, can never be documented.  But what IS undoubtedly the case is that by attacking this person – whether it was a predatory attack or defensive response to a perceived threat to her cubs – Blaze learned something that she could not have known previously: hunting humans is safe and easy. Humans can’t flee and so don’t require fat-depleting bursts of energy, and they are weak fighters that can be subdued almost instantly without negative consequence (at least in a national park, where people don’t pack anything more deadly that bear spray, and Crosby wasn’t even carrying that). And humans, including the plenitude of vulnerable ones unprepared and off-trail as Crosby was, are everywhere in her territory. While probably not as full of protein and fat compared, say, to the carcass of a bulk elk or bison, an adult human could provide enough food for Blaze and two cubs to sustain more than one nutritionally valuable feeding. In other words, the payoff for a very low-risk, very small investment of energy, is large. This is the only calculation a wild bear makes.  This is the most important insight Blaze could ever offer.  

Grizzly 399 Shares Her 2014 Secrets

Three weeks ago we returned from ten marvelous, as always, days in our favorite part of the world, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. 2014's marvels included hikes to fascinating locales new to us plus a few favorite places we haven't checked on in a while, our first (at long last) river otter sighting, catching up with beloved friends, and a photo ops galore. Premier among the wildlife-sightings was our favorite grizzly bear 399, known to her fans as Queen, or Lady, of the Tetons. She is the exceptionally fecund bear that likes to bring up her young broods near the roads in the 5-1/2 mile region spanning two visitor areas, Colter Bay and Jackson Lake. Last year we relished watching her three new triplets play along a side-road just far enough away to be considered safe. Indeed, 399 was wholly focused on eating grasses, roots, flowers, insects and worms while the kids alternately nibbled and grubbed and cavorted, all ignoring their thrilled paparazzi.

We got up early on our third morning to go look for wildlife, which is really just code for "look for bears." Only a mile or two down the main road we could see the indubitable sign of wildlife activity ahead: many dozens of cars parked along both the shoulders and people all running in the same direction, more or less loaded down with camera gear. Who should be eating and playing along the south side of the road but our most familiar and favorite grizzly, 399 and two year-old cubs. This how we learned that one of the three had not survived the winter. Big fierce muscular grizzlies, especially young ones, it turns out, are in fact very fragile and at high risk for death before they are sufficiently mature to reproduce. It's not known what happened to the third cub, though there is speculation that before the bears even denned for the winter it was separated from its mother. In their first and second years, grizzly cubs cannot survive alone, especially as winter approaches.  Although they can feed themselves plant and insect material and eat from carcases (and, alas, human food supplies and garbage, though this no longer happens in Yellowstone/Tetons) they come across, they still need their mother to hunt meat for them and occasionally, to nurse them. In this photo, one of 399's axillary mammaries is clearly visible  behind her left foreleg. Note her nice grizzly-style claws, too.

Here she is with one of her year-old cubs, for size comparison. This nose-down posture is how we see bears most of the time as they eat-eat-eat all summer to assure reserves to make it through another winter.

399 was huffing (inaudibly to us, but we could see it in her expression and movements) at the second cub, about 50 feet behind this beautiful mirror of a snow-melt puddle, to "come along now!" The other cub was quite busy overturning rocks and pieces of wood to find tasty ants and worms. To me it seems unlikely that such large animals can satisfy a big portion of their caloric needs by eating plants and small invertebrates, but they do. 

Adding to the romance of watching these bears is the stunning scenic backdrop of the Grand Teton mountain range. Her characteristic shoulder hump is very evident in this shot.

The rangers, like this guy in the Smokey the Bear hat and reflective vest, work very hard all summer to protect not only park visitors but these habituated bears that really are not skittish enough around people. I call this photo "Baby Bear Mayhem" as one of the cubs makes its way across the road and stops to look at the paparazzi. All traffic is stopped of course. The folks on the left side of that tour bus got a great look at the cub. Note the license plate on the big black SUV! Many people come to the park purely to watch and photograph bears.

The cubs made it across safely but one continued to evidence curiosity about its watchers. Frankly, it would be much better if it were shyer.

Finally Mother Bear 399 found herself reacting to the passing of an over-sized camper.

But then everyone went back to priority bear business, namely, cashing in on the nutritious green grasses and flowers before they naturally dry out as the season goes on.

People often ask how close I was when I take these kinds of pictures. Here's a wide angle on this scene. Although it looks like there are no longer a lot of people around, in fact the rangers do not allow people to pull over near the bears, so as the family gradually migrated from one side of the road to to the other, to the pond, and along the grassy hill, the rangers regularly barked orders to the watchers to back up, and eventually, to move their cars well down the road as well. In this picture I am at the vanguard of a large crowd of photographers (many blessed with much better glass than I) with maybe 50 or 70  cars behind us.

This was without a doubt the most rewarding time spent with 399 and her many cubs since I first spotted them in 2006. This year we were lucky to see the family twice more before we left the park, though never as clearly nor for such a prolonged and fruitful bear-watching session.  The rangers were certainly harried, and many park visitors contentious about not being allowed to just stop and get out of their cars, especially along a crowded intersection later in the day such that there was a great deal more traffic to contend with. It concerns me that the bears are utterly nonchalant about traffic, and so many people are either oblivious to their need for distance or alternately, not interested in seeing the bears and aggressively trying to get past the "mayhem," both set-ups for bear and/or people disasters.

Churchill Redux Part V: Bear Be Gone!

Click here to go to Part VI.