JeffreyTrust.com is a great read – and not just because I know him. One of the articles that particularly caught my mind was Jeffrey’s musings about what a solution for managing bears would be. He talks about some of the things that they’ve tried – things that haven’t worked, like trying to condition bears to avoid human food, or putting up yet another bloody sign next to the ones that are already up, and things that have worked (to a degree), like improved food storage and ‘hazing’ bears with rubber bullets and loud noisemakers. It’s helping – but it’s hard to see and count the number of bears that remain wild that wouldn’t have otherwise, while dealing with the one bear that becomes dangerous, who has run out of other solutions, is a heart-breaker. Bringing us back to the questions: What else can we do? What is the solution?

Just as it’s in a bear’s nature to get the most calories for the least effort, it’s in a person’s nature to keep their food where it is convenient (not necessarily in a properly shut bear box) and to be lazy about walking the trash to the dumpster.

Idea 1. Make the lazy option OK. People may already be investigating different mechanisms that automatically lock and close without any additional effort from the people using them. Trouble is, bears seem to be shockingly good at figuring out how to open things, so this automated mechanism has to be complicated enough to foil clever bears, who have years to figure it out, but not so complicated as to confuse non-clever people who drove in late and just want to get to bed. Hm – now that I think of it, those could be overlapping sets. Tough problem.

Idea 2. Make the consequences more severe. The one solution/non-solution, that Jeffrey promises (I hope) to return to at some later date, is the option of issuing more/bigger citations for improper food storage. I hope he does, because his perspective would be interesting. I’m sure increasing the consequences for improper food storage isn’t a new idea for Jeffrey, or the others who have been working for years with Yosemite’s bears, but here are my thoughts anyway, since I’m thinking them.

It seems that the way to make that effective, is to do it in a way that makes it remarkable. Make the consequences for getting caught severe. Get a few headlines: “Yosemite NPS is cracking down on illegal food storage. $5000 fine for a forgotten sandwich…” Recruit travel writers like Tom Stienstra or Marek Warszawski to write articles. Issue a Press Release. Make the new policy big enough to make NEWS.

Not that you could EVER do this, but if we hazed people for leaving food out the same way we haze bears for getting close, people would take notice and start telling their friends. Nothing like a little hostile fire to encourage me to get that food into the locked bear box – pronto. Plus, it would be cathartic for rangers to open up with paintball guns on repeat offenders, wouldn’t it? (Joking! …kind of)

I don’t know. If there was an easy solution someone would have done it already, wouldn’t they? I’m sure there is no magic bullet. So, we creep up on a solution, one tracking collar, rubber bullet, sign, citation and heartbreaking bear story at a time. Thanks for the writing, Jeffrey. I hope we can figure it out.

[PS. Thanks to Loyd over at YosemiteBlog for pointing Jeffrey's new site out to me.]

If I see a bear by the side of the road, find a legal pull-out, get out of my car and watch, and then a Bear Jam forms, is that my fault?

Usually, the way bear jams or deer jams form, is that one person notices the animals. Drawn by their attention, a group begins to gather. Motorists slow down to see what they are looking at. When that something is a bear – or in this case, a momma bear and two absolutely adorable cubs – crowds form, traffic slows, and before you know it – Bear Jam.

I have proven over and over, that I am EXACTLY the sort of person that stops in the middle of the road in order to get a better look at some cool animal. Tom and I came to a full halt in the middle of the road in Australia to watch an Echidna uncurl and then complete it’s wobbling deliberate journey across the road. I’ve stopped mid-drive for bear, coyotes, even a couple of road-side flowers. Sometimes, you just have to stop.

However, I do at least try to be reasonably considerate about it. I am more than aware that not everyone on the road has the same inclination to come to a complete mesmerized halt at the very same moment that I do. After all, most of the time the person that isn’t interested in the thing by the road, or actually has someplace to be, is me. Besides, coming to a complete stop in the middle of the road just around a blind corner is freaking dangerous.

Most recently, Tom and I were caravanning two cars back to our house when I looked over and spotted a bear. Tom had seen her too, and we pulled over in the nearest pull-out, grabbed our camera and binoculars and walked back up the street. It wasn’t long before a giant crowd formed. Some people just stopped in the road. Others, with more consideration tried, unsuccessfully, to pull mostly off the street before jumping out to take pictures.

Before long, a resigned-looking ranger appeared, trying to clear the traffic, keep half an eye on people creeping down into the meadow to take a closer look, and get the illegally parked cars off the road. I didn’t envy him his job at that moment.

The bears had probably been in the meadow for quite some time. If we hadn’t stopped, maybe no one would have noticed. Maybe the Bear Jam wouldn’t have formed at all. Although I feel a little guilty about that, we did get some nice pictures – and a chance to watch some really beautiful bears doing wild bear things.

Tom and I have just gotten back from our weekend adventures, put the groceries in the pantry and refrigerator, and wolfed a bit of the fancy artesian bread we can’t get here with extra cheese and olives. It’s been a long and very full weekend.

I took the day off on Friday for my birthday (Saturday), and Tom and I left Thursday night after work for a quick backpacking trip. We saw many things, had great adventures, and hiked out Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon we drove into the Bay Area for a friend’s memorial service on Sunday. We talked about goal-setting, and listened to the first bit of Unaccustomed Earth on the drive. That evening, our friends who graciously opened their house to us, treated me/us to a birthday dinner at Plearn, a local Thai restaurant. Really delicious non-European food and the good company of friends is such a treat.

The service on Sunday was beautiful, and touching. The stories celebrating such a remarkable man went on and on. I’m still processing – and just remembering.

Afterwards, we picked up a bed frame at Ikea that we had been eyeing for some time, and then drove to San Jose to meet up with Tom’s family, pick up the car we’d lent, and eat some pizza at a place nearby, Amicis, that serves gluten-free, and vegan options.

Monday morning, we had brunch with yet another friend before making the long drive back to Yosemite, pausing for a bear jam along the way.

I’m back on a frequent-post kick, so expect to hear more detailed stories unfold over the next few days. I’ve had a lot to think about.

Yosemite’s bears, like most black bears, usually settle down in the winter time and hibernate. (There’s some confusion about the term because different animals hibernate in different ways, but black bears enter a state where they don’t move around, eat, drink, urinate or defecate for many months, and according to the North American Bear Center, leading physiologists have returned to just using the word hibernate, again.) But this year, there are a couple of bears in Yosemite that seem to staying up late to explore winter, (there’s a children’s story in there somewhere) and Tom and I were lucky enough to see them a few weeks ago.
Read the rest of this entry »