Right In The Butt

*** continued from previous post ***

After the hub-bub had settled a bit, Dale continued explaining to us that there really were no problem bears, it was people that created the problem and the bears were just doing what bears do, finding the most amount of food with the least amount of effort. Much like big business.

So it had taken him years, but he'd finally managed to convince the Park Service and the concessions operating in the Park, like the Lodge, to implement a strict garbage containment program so as to remove temptation from the bears path. No food - no bear. Simple as that.

This made perfect sense to me. I myself have been known to leave a party early when they take away the snacks. Which happens quite often. Quite often indeed. That's curious, isn't it? Strikes me as a bit odd anyway.

Back to the bears. The thought of a grizzly being addicted to garbage conjured up all sorts of images and scenarios in my head. Most of them involving a grizzly attending a 12-step program, sharing its pain, and then eating the group. It's like Grandma used to say; "You can take the Grizzly out of the woods, but you can't make him adhere to strictly defined social customs and mores."

Ah Grandma. She could really turn a phrase.

Dale then went on to elaborate that the grizzlies, being at the tippy-top of the food chain but not quite realizing it, although they had strong suspicions, weren't terribly afraid of humans. So, in their search for food they'd come to recognize that human = garbage and garbage = food. Oddly, he left out the part about human = food but we all knew that was a given.

When the bears lost their fear of humans, Dale explained, that's when the problems really started. But most bears were shy and stayed out of people's way. But not all of them.

Ya. Well, I hated to disappoint Mr. Bear-man here, but the bears that I'd observed since entering the Park didn't seem to be especially wary of human activity. Curious yes. Frightened no.

"So," Dale said, "we'll get a call about a bear in a picnic area or campground, or shoot - sometimes in a parking lot at a trail head, and Keesha and I will jump in the truck, hunt her down, then POP POP POP," he said, mimicking holding a paintball gun, "right in the butt."

Hemp-lady scowled but no one besides me seemed to notice. I offered her a smile because I've come to learn all my years on this planet that it's best not to taunt the deranged. Well, you can taunt them. Just not to the point of breaking. Otherwise next thing you know one minute you're standing in line at the Post Office, making snarky comments to the lady behind the counter, and the next you're at the Gates of Hell with nary a clue as to how you arrived.

Hemp-lady didn't return the smile. I didn't worry. I could see by the folds of her robe she wasn’t packing, being a Canadian and all, and besides - I was pretty sure Mom could take her.

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