My Dad on Bears & Mountains

My picture is of something that happened at Manning Park in 1969 to a tourist feeding the bears. He turned his back on the bears and the bear bit him in the bum and ripped half his pants off.

My picture explains that people are naïve in their relationships with bears. They have this Walt-Disney inspired idea about wild animals. Walt-Disney and Hollywood has perpetrated this “friendly animal, thinking animal”, while the truth is that most animals in the wild regard people with fear or as a brunch.The man assumed that the bear was like a dog and that you could just turn your back and ignore it.

I was told (about wild animals and the forest) by my parents. I have engaged in amateur studies all my life. My first memory was of a bear pick up a 200 lb. pig up in its mouth on a farm and carrying it over a two-foot fence – alive!- when I was eight. I learned where bears live in school. They tell you and you remember. I can remember studying about bears.

The first thing that we need to learn about bears is about environment and how people affect them. The second thing is to be wary of them: they're not toys. They're an important part of our world make-up. Some of them are endangered species that we don't want to see go. We, as a human population, circumvent their hunting areas by building towns, cities, road, industrial sites which changes the whole dynamics of their eating/breeding cycles, migration, etc. etc. etc. We also leave too much garbage out for them to eat (black bear, especially) thereby disturbing their habitat. (How do you know that bears eat garbage?) Live in Gold River, live in any of the northern towns. Bears are always rooting around in the garbage. This causes the bears to ingest unnatural food for their digestive systems such as, icecream, candies, baked-goods. Sugar! Because bears can't really eat a lot of sugar. They tolerate honey. And chemicals.

I chose to draw a picture of a tourist because it stuck in my mind. He wanted us to shoot the bear. We were laughing so hard because his bum was hanging out. It left bruises on his bum. Didn't cut the skin, but his pants were hanging off. (If we could only teach tourists or children a few things about the Rockies, would we teach them?) That they are eleven million years old. That it's wilderness, not your neighborhood area where the mall is. That they should enjoy it and see all they can but stay close to your parents. And they should stop occasionally and smell, and hear, and look around, and be tactile. Pick a rock up. Put your hand in the cold river, or feet, whatever.

When people go to the Rockies, they notice how high the mountains are, how thin the air is, how clear the sky is... (softly) how quiet it is... And at night you can see a million stars. No smog. How everything has a place and a cycle. Seasonal change. How different they look in August to January. Two extremes in actual heat. Lots of snow and ice. Animal migration...is a big one. New born babies: March til April...that's a natural thing that animals seem to sense. You go up into the Rockies. All the trees turn a little greener. It's chlorophyll count, that's what does it. And of course all the flowers seem to bloom. There is always an abundance of animals seasonally in Spring and Summer. They come up from the lowlands, right?

An intensive study of the Rockies can help us understand other people who live in mountainous areas, alpine communities, and natural processes at work there. Because we are sort of sedentary species, we don't want to move away from where we are, whether coastal region or flatlands, or urban areas. We should be aware before we move there or visit what to expect. They will realize that there are severe weather changes. If you go to the Himalayas, Tetons, or Alps, the higher elevations...most of the flora and fauna are within the same group. They have the wildcat, the lynx, the bear, the flowers that bloom are all within the same group or category...and birds of prey, same thing. In all of the regions, they have the hawk and the eagle populations that hunt at the higher altitudes...as are their prey: you know little rodents. But, rock formations in all of the major mountain groups in the world are quite different from each other.

As a parent, I would like to tell educators about why ecological learnin is important. In my lifetime I have seen a great change in the environment and in the loss of species. The poisoning of other species – take the killer whale. As simple as ABC, we have to teach our children at an early age that we control the environment, i.e. pollution, parklands, birdhabitats, etc. etc. etc. and it's our responsibility as the latter day generation to impart this knowledge to our children or they won't have it for long. Well, it's true. If we don't tell people now, they're going to lose it. You know, not in our lifetime.