As some of you may already know, early in the morning of Wednesday a female Grizzly ripped into three separate tents in Soda Butte campground, 6 miles west of the NE entrance to Yellowstone.  Two people were bitten, and one man was fatally mauled.  While details have, naturally, been slow in coming, the intial opinion of the USFS and MT Fish, Wildlife and Parks is that the attack was random and had no obvious provocation.  The mother bear they trapped was healthy, and the campers that were attacked appeared to have been practicing safe food storage.

One thing that can be said is that Soda Butte might be an overly problematic location for a major campground.  It is close to Cooke City.  It is right next to a perrenial stream.  It is located at the bottom of a fairly narrow, steep, heavily wooded on one side and clear cut on the other valley.  If memory serves (and I cannot readily find a citation for this), it is 10-15 miles directly north of the areas into which problem/overly habituated bears have in recent decades been airlifted, though I’m not sure if this practice is still current. Most significantly, a very similar incident happened in 2008, though with only one person injured and no fatalities. I expect serious discussion of the campgrounds location, and a possible permanent closure, in the near future.

This certainly wouldn’t be the first time such a subject has been addressed in the greater Yellowstone area. Humans tend to find areas aesthetic for the same reasons animals, and especially bears, find them efficacious for survival. 30 years ago, in the wake of the open dump closings, a park master plan was discussed which included moving certain tourist facilities to less wildlife (bear) sensitive areas. Fishing bridge was one of them. Unfortunately nostalgia prevented this from happening, though it’s poor location was acknowledged in the still-standing rule that only hard-sided vehicles are allowed in the Fishing Bridge Campground/RV park. If you look at the map, you’ll notice that not only is the campground and visitor complex right next to the outlet of Yellowstone Lake (trout central), but it is between the river and the place where Pelican Creek enters into Yellowstone Lake. Pelican Creek is fed by thermal creeks, and Pelican Valley is open and south facing, which combine to mean that it is one of the most favorable pieces of habitat in the park. The water stays open long after other streams freeze, the valley melts out early and greens up quickly in the spring. In fact, for all of May and June Pelican Valley beyond the road is closed to humans, because it is a calving ground and thus a bear magnate. So why do we let people stay there?

Reading and thinking about this incident delayed my sleep by several hours last night.  The evening’s hike had gone late, and I should have been exhausted, but the news was too timely to ignore.  Jill and I had discussed bears and the fear of bears while walking, and I had made my usual case that statistically a bear attack is much more rare than a car wreck.  It is only because of the remoteness of a bear attack that we can fixate on that fear without paralyzing daily life.  If I gave driving the attention and dread it probably merits, I’d hesistate to drive at all, and that would be a real drag.  Numerically distant fears, like bear attacks, are safe to fixate on in daily.  That and, of course, our human need to think of ourselves as the top of the food chain makes bearanoia especially appealing.

Most of the time bears fit nicely into the rules hikers can set up for themselves.  Cook away from your tent, hang your food, don’t cook bacon, don’t surprise bears, don’t get between mama and baby, avoid high-probability bear areas during certain times of year and you’ll be just fine.  I’ve followed these rules, seen around a dozen bears in the last 12 months (almost all while alone) and untold fresh bear sign, and every one ran away or didn’t notice I was there.  Cases like this Soda Butte attack leave me hoping that some circumstance will come forward to explain away the exceptional behavior.  That is looking increasingly unlikely, and may leave us contemplating the uncomfortable inevitability that bears are indenpendent critters.  They’ll do what they want, and on rare occasions that may mean chomping on you for no reason fathomable by humans.  In the end, going into bear country means that you’re giving implied consent to enter into the food chain in a way that we humans haven’t been for quite some time. 

Hiker beware.

I’m not going to stop backpacking in bear country, and I’ll likely head out solo again, probably within the month.  But thanks to the Soda Butte attack I’ll probably sleep less soundly, at least for a little while.