"The Man Who Lives With
Bears" -
Responses
RE:
The Man Who Lives With Bears, the story of Charlie Vandergraw
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4476899496233661707
Response By Steve Stringham
Hello All,
Reading some of the recent comments on how much skill
is needed to safely coexist with bears on their turf, I am forced to
wonder what qualifications their authors have for advising anyone on
these matters. As much as they may decry Treadwell, they sound very much
like him in their assessment of bear aggression -- or non-aggression, if
you will.
As a scientist, my first response to anyone's
statement of knowledge is "What proof do you have? How have you verified
your conclusions? What critical tests have you performed?"
When it comes to bear safety, verification is very
difficult and sometimes quite dangerous. Which is why the history of
bear safety education has been rife with the blind leading the blind.
Much of the lore about ursine ferocity is mere hype. But would an Edenic
viewpoint be any more realistic and reliable?
Assessing danger is easiest where each test gives a
definitive result. Does fire burn? Stick you finger into the flame and
find out! If each violation of a safety precaution triggered immediate
"punishment," need for the precaution would be crystal clear.
Assessing danger is infinitely harder where the risk
of "punishment" is very small, as Treadwell's case illustrates: For
example, after a year or so of camping at the Kaflia Narrows without an
electric fence and of not needing pepper spray, he concluded that the
standard precautions were useless. And for roughly 1000 days and nights
at Katmai, he was right. But on the 1001st night, he was wrong; dead
wrong.
Skill at reading bear body language to assess mood and
intentions, and skill in responding, may likewise be unnecessary in
specific locations such as Hallo bay or McNeil 99.9% of the time. But if
you happen to meet the "1000th" bear, such skill could mean the
difference between life and death.
The notion that only 1 bear in 1000 is likely to
dangerously bully you is a lot more comforting on your 1st encounter
than after your 10,000th, as in my own case.
How many times do you have to get away with violating
a precaution before you can determine whether it is useless, or only
essential occasionally?
Bears may not be dangerous in the way usually hyped by
media. But they are dangerous in the same basic way that flying a small
plane is dangerous. It takes no more skill to watch typical bears at
some sites than it takes to pilot a small plane or a boat during calm
weather through the wide open spaces. But piloting through a storm, or
during landing or takeoff, can challenge even experts. So too, there are
situations during bear encounters that demand every bit of knowledge,
skill and judgment that anyone can offer.
Ultra-lights are especially dangerous. Yet, Charlie
Russell managed to survive both bears and ultra-lights; and for some of
the same reasons. He is likely as knowledgeable and skilled with bears
as he is with a plane.
That said, Brandon is perfectly correct in noting that
this kind of knowledge and skill are a far cry from magic.
You can learn by reading and with guidance by a tutor
in the field. In this day and age, learning like Treadwell did, by the
seat of your pants, isn't smart.
Steve Stringham
Reply by Sabrina
Steve,
No disrespect, but scientists need cold hard proof of
everything they encounter to come up with a reasonable explanation on
their findings and it seems all of their findings HAVE to have a
reasonable end. Some things have no definitive explanation, and if
anything proves that, its Grizzlies. Some things are constantly
changing, and everything depends upon circumstances and environments. I
don't think Treadwell concluded anything, I think Treadwell did what he
thought was right for him no matter the outcome. I also think, given
that last statement, he didn't think, out of complacency, that the
outcome would be what it was, and so, part of his stubborn problem was
that contemplating the "what if" cost bears their lives. These are
lessons to be learned. Let's not forget that although the "experts" say
they knew he would get killed getting close to bears, he didn't. He got
killed doing what people do when confronted by a bear outside a tent AND
by camping in a spot he should never have camped but had for thirteen
years before. Complacent? NOT by touching a bears ass. Not by
photographing a bear. Mind you, plenty of scientists and biologists have
gotten killed and/or mauled while doing their work. Many scientists and
biologists have killed bears doing their work.
Another point I would like to make is that the "expert
bear scientist and biologists" don't really make the time for simple
enthusiasts. I suppose had people taken Treadwell more seriously, or at
least gotten him involved in something more productive, the outcome may
have been different. Yet they were too busy waiting for something to go
wrong so that for a few days they could get patted on the back for
saying, "they told him so." Amazing. Instead using him in a positive way
they forced him to, how did you say Steve, "fly by the seat of his
pants", really there were no other options for someone of his character
and the more he was teased the more trouble he became. People with high
passion and enthusiasm are hard to stop, so placing them in an area
where they could do the most good with that energy would be the best way
to go, otherwise, more Treadwells will prevail and they will cause the
exact thing the biologists wish to avoid. Basic psychology. Regardless
because of Treadwell my inspiration has taken me on a different path and
I am helping out in a positive way. Another, "oh everyone who watches
Treadwell is going to become like him" line of BS. Like I said, not
trying to be confrontational, just throwing out my view. Hard to gauge
inflection in people's tones online obviously.
Aw, this oughta open up a can of worms. It's been a
while.
Sabrina
Reply by John
My comments are based on the 20,000+ yearly safe
human-bear encounters that occur at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park
with totally inexperienced tourists who only receive 20 minutes of
training before being allowed to freely wander in a wooded area
concentrated with grizzlies. Between 300-500 tourists per day visit
Brooks Camp during the peak of summer. This has been going on for about
30 years now without a single fatality. During this time probably
several 100,000 inexperienced, unskilled non-scientists have safely
observed bears up close at Brooks Camp. I can think of no better
scientific proof of what is possible than Brooks. (I would also add how
these numbers starkly contrast with the 3,496 murders and aggravated
assaults committed by humans in Alaska in one year, 2006)
I know, I know... but Brooks bears are habituated so
they don't really count. Why is it that habituated bears are always
discounted? It seems habituated bears, like those in some parts of
Katmai, are always ignored and treated like the exception rather than
being seen as the model of what is possible with bears everywhere.
Habituation is often used like a bad word but in the case of Katmai it
simply represents what is possible when bears live in an intact
ecosystem that is free of human violence. In any case, bears visiting
Brooks Falls come from all reaches of the park and a significant portion
of the bears there are not habituated. Also the area around Brooks is
heavily wooded and its quite common for inexperienced tourists to be
surprised by bears crossing the trail right in front of them. Yet even
with a high concentration of non-habituated grizzlies sharing space with
inexperienced humans in a highly wooded area, there has never been a
fatality at Brooks. How can that data be ignored?
Also I hold no illusions about temperament differences
between coastal browns compared to inland grizzlies. Inland grizzlies
have larger personal space requirements but coexisting with them is no
more difficult than coexisting with coastal browns. Living in the
Canadian Rockies we observed many inland grizzlies but we just didn't
get nearly as close. Despite the pressures of intense habitat
destruction and hunting, the attitude of the bears towards us was
identical to the coastal, �habituated� bears of Katmai � calm,
indifference as long as we gave them adequate space. I don't suspect
inland grizzlies will ever be as comfortable up close with humans as
Katmai bears but when they are free from the violence of humans so much
more is possible.
There is no doubt that what Vandergraw, Russell,
Stringham and others do requires skill and experience. This is the
reason why, unlike Treadwell, we spent years observing grizzlies and
trained for a week in Katmai with an grizzly bear expert before we
camped in Katmai solo. Having experience and skill is of course
essential when working frequently up close with so many bears because
your odds are much higher of eventually running into an agressive bear.
But I simply tire of the narrative that always gives all the credit to
the human and none to the bears. The human ego has already done enough
damage to bears. It doesn't take lots of experience for the average
person to be safe in bear country but narratives such as this one seem
to imply that without experience bears will eat you. Even a
conservative, federal institution such as the National Park service
deems 20 minutes of training sufficient for every tourist visiting
Brooks Falls.
Experience isn't everything and many times those with lots of experience
become complacent and antiquated. Just because a person has 10 times
more experience doesn't mean they have 10 times the skill and people
learn at different rates. Just as good judgement isn't necessarily a
byproduct of experience. Police officers have more experience in dealing
with violent people but that doesn't mean you need to be a police
officer to be safe around people.
As a scientist myself I've come to realize that
science is extremely limiting when it comes to studying the behavior of
complex animals. If you only look at bears through the lens of science
then there is so much you are missing. Scientists are typically
interested in animals as a population whereas we're more interested in
them as individuals.
John
Reply by Steve Stringham
Hello All,
John Teel's latest statement is well put. The easiest
way to summarize the situation is that bears exhibit a spectrum of
behaviors towards people depending on their degree of respect and trust
for us.
Fred Dean and I were the first biologists to study
bears at Brooks, roughly 40 years ago. Even then, some bears showed a
fair bit of tolerance. But both bears and people were often upset by
surprise close encounters.
With the passage of time, the numbers of bears and
people encountering one another there have increased greatly, such that
most bears largely ignore people. As John implies, it's
counter-productive to write these bears off as unnatural because they
are "habituated". (Actually, used properly, "habituated" to people means
that they ignore us, which is exactly what we seek in most
circumstances). This is not unnatural, just one pole of the spectrum,
and a highly desirable pole at that, since eve people with minimal
knowledge of bears can move among them at minimal risk.
One should not be so nonchalant among bears on the
Katmai Coast, even at Hallo Bay. For we do sometimes run into bears that
are not particularly tolerant, as well as a few that are simply very
very dangerous. Again, ursine personalities have as much diversity as
human personalities. Anyone who camps out in these area, or who hikes
solo or in pairs, is well advised to learn all they can about bear body
language and psychology.
It is certainly essential to recognize that the danger
of bear attack is often vastly exaggerated. However, we dare not fall
into the opposite error of ignoring the many cases where people have
been attacked. Our experiences show that conventional attack analysis --
pioneered by Steve Herrero and subsequently expanded by Higgins and now
by Tom Smith -- has led to some erroneous conclusions, such as the
belief that habituation makes bears more dangerous. It may under some
circumstances; but it has just the opposite effect under the
circumstances we encounter. A great deal more study is needed to really
understand why attacks occur and how risk can be minimized. Hopefully,
John and Jessica will join those of us already studying this so that we
can better assure peaceful, enjoyable coexistence between people and
bears.
Steve Stringham
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