There’s been a lot of discussion about bear interaction and about the best way to prevent conflict. In a previous post Ralph shared a story about folk not knowing or caring enough to clean up their camp entitled ‘They’re not getting it’. The Rexburg Standard Journal has a story which suggests to me that not only are they not getting it ~ in some cases they’re asking for it.
Note: I don’t know how long that link’s going to be alive
Comments
Funny you should mention that . In a paper that hit the streets today and will be online by tomorrow, the lead story is about a griz that broke into someone’s screened porch to get at some chips and crackers. The police reports cite the call on 9/2.
It is a good article about how the town of West Yellowstone is really just a town shaved out of the large forest, if you look at it from the S Plateau (or even Horse Butte) it’s obvious.
A point I often make when telling tourists that they have to keep their trash indoors or in one of the approved dumpsters: “…the bears didn’t pencil in the town on their migratory maps, I guess.”
The article also points out what a danger this is for the bears as well as the fact that even a flimsy garage and plastic trash bags inside it aren’t bear-proof.
It will be online within the next 24 hrs at:
http://www.westyellowstonenews.com
I recall accompanying some of my siblings to Island Park one year. I tried to tell them about the bear factor, they had a cabin way out on Lucky Dog Creek, and were all in a tizzy about some issue or other, couldn’t care less about what I had to say concerning their safety. I walked around the cabin to scope out the bear scene and found fresh scat ten ft. from the back door… we scared it away when we pulled in the drive, it looked like. the next morning I found a colony of bear beds just a few hundred ft. from the cabin in the grasses along the creek.
As the evening family soap opera ensued, many families do this on vacation-especially when there are mostly adult females in the group, my eldest sister had an emotional moment and felt she needed to just go for a walk. I tried to catch her but I was perceived as having a different motive… I was waiting for the creams and wondered how the rest of this California crew were going to handle the scene after that.
Not one of the ten adults present were even willing to spend ten seconds considering their safety in the wild. To them it was just a nice hotel room with some trees outside and the NP just up the road… the bears are in the park, right?
I can only guess that the rest of the visitors to these areas are somewhere in between the informed traveler and the folks who are out here because it isn’t where they live but it is just like the last town, you know, WallyWorld and McD’s…
At first glance, I thought that this article was about Fremont County, Wyoming, not Idaho. Some of you may recall the Fremont County (WY) commissioners passing an resolution back in 2003 that proclaimed wolves and bears as “undesirable species” and were declared illegal in Fremont Co. This was a reaction by the commissioners to the Forest Service’s proposed food storage rules on Forest Service lands.
Instead of looking to the safety of the fine, tax-paying citizens of Fremont Co. who may recreate on the Shoshone National Forest (near Lander, WY), the county commissioners took it upon themselves to invite about 150 of their rancher buddies in an effort to flip the bird in the face of the Forest Service staff. The calendar went back about a hundred years in Fremont that day.
The commissioners and their comrades thought it would better to resolve the issue in the only way that they know how to deal with any issue: if you have a problem with something, just shoot it or beat it. There, problem solved. This is the same way they deal with their women and dogs in that part of the world. They didn’t want to hear anything about storing your food and trash so that bears couldn’t get into them; they thought it would be better to just shoot the bear- that would learn ‘em to mess with Fremont County men.
Good luck convincing the county that being a slob in the woods isn’t just stupid; its can be dangerous. Yeah, those would-be nature nuts and adventurers that bait in bears are really asking for it- Problem is that they may not be the ones that get hurt; it may be the next person to come down the trail. Irresponsible and lazy, if you asked me.
Sad that “adequate regulatory mechanisms” are supposed to be in place prior to delisting, but here its clear that Idaha Fish & Game recognizing that existing programs are not adequate to ensure common sense precautions are taken. Another indication that this delisting was premature.
This can all be easily filtered down into one thing:
Build a home in bear country and you will probably have a bear come by at some point. The easiest way to prevent bear trouble in neighborhoods is to stop building rural subdivisions. Bandaid solutions are always more expensive and less effective than preventive medicine.
Most of the bear trouble stories involve this tage line ” they had a cabin back up road X”.
So does ID want to make it illegal for homeowners to bait bears to view them (which certainly isn’t good) but keep it legal for hunters to bait and shoot them? That makes a lot of sense.
So does ID want to make it illegal for homeowners to bait bears to view them (which certainly isn’t a good idea) but keep it legal for hunters to bait and shoot them? That makes a lot of sense.