Circle of Bears

A circle of bears.  We go round and round with wondering what to do about predators in our world.  In the lower 48, most of the grizzlies have been hunted to near extinction with only pockets in Montana and Wyoming.  And now Alaska is pushing to remove bears.  In the past two springs, they've opened up very liberal practices, including killing of all bears within a 540 square mile area in western Alaska. 

I wanted to document it.  I wanted to see what works.  Does this practice really show that we humans are stewards to the wildlife around us?  Or are we making the same mistakes they'd made a hundred years ago?  What biological approach could possibly support such a move?

To make a promotional video, I had to shoot bears.  Not with a rifle, but with a camera.  Being in Oregon, bears are somewhat scarce.  Especially the Alaska types.  However, I was able to find two Alaskan bears within a half hour of home.  Who would have thought this could be possible?  But Wildlife Images is a rehabilitation center that take in orphaned or wounded animals.  They took in two Alaskan bear cubs with the idea of getting them ready for the wild, then setting them free. 

That was 20 years ago.

Kodi, the male, and Yak, the female, have lived around humans for so long, I really didn't feel fear as I stood within 8 feet of these majestic creatures--only a fence post and two electric wires that separated us.  I ran the cameras.  Personnel got them to move around, to pose, to maybe even smile.  They went round and round--a circle of bears within a circular environment.  They alone were the symbol of what was lost in America.  They alone are what's left.  And they alone could symbolize where Alaska may one day be.

Kodi went after a thrown piece of cantaloupe.  The wild stuff they usually find in the wilds of Alaska.  Yak stands on her hind legs and puts her paws together.  She eventually ends up with a rib bone and wanders off the gnaw on it.  Laying down in a grove of pines, she looks back at us with a look one might find if we were to actually see a wild bear.  Distain.  But why?  After all, food comes at relatively the same time every day be a group of volunteers.  And today was special.  Some goof with a camera was allowed in her pen to do some video and photography.  I was that goof, and I was having the time of my life.  Still, when I look back at her expression, I wonder if it was distain for lack of freedom.  If she were in the wild, she would be leading her own life among the glaciers and mountains of Alaska rather that succumbing to the heat and occasional smoke fires of southern Oregon. 

Still, if we could save one bear, then maybe we could save a hundred.  Then a thousand.  And perhaps our world would be a little richer as we wander out into bear country feeling that fear--that wildness that makes the backcountry unique. 

And perhaps then, and only then, would this circle of understanding be left to the natural lifecycle of seasons that have allowed man and bear to endure for thousands of years.