The relationship between bears and people has long been an uneasy one in Yellowstone National Park. When I was young there were bleachers set up at the dump behind Old Faithful Lodge. People would go out there in the evening to watch the bears as they came to feed at the dump. The leftover food from the hotel restaurant and other venues was dumped on the ground and the bears would rummage through it. There was a bear that was called “Old Scarface” who was dominant. When he came to the dump, he got preferred status. The other bears would give him space and he would eat what he wanted. If he was challenged by another bear, he would quickly respond with growling and quick swipes of his claws. The scars on his face were thought to have come from fighting with other bears.

Black bears would line up along the park roads and tourists would feed them by throwing scraps of food out of their cars. From time to time there would be tourists who were injured by bears. They would get out of their cars to take pictures and fail to estimate the speed with which a bear could travel. After several incidents, park officials decided to reduce the contact between bears and tourists. The bleachers were removed. The dump was closed and the park company began hauling trash out of the park to landfills in surrounding counties. Bears who had become accustomed to surviving by begging from tourists were trapped and hauled to remote locations.

Some of the first radio collars were fitted on some of the bears in the park. There was a complex antenna mounted under the belly of one of my father’s Super Cub airplanes that could be used to track bears with collars. The range of the transmitters on the bears was not very good and we had to get within a couple of miles in order to get a signal, but over time learned the bears’ travel patterns and could usually find them.

The general cycle was that the bears would be trapped alongside roads and lodges in the park, trucked to the end of the Slew Creek road and released. It would take the bears a couple of months to work their way back to the places where they had been trapped. Summer season in Yellowstone was only four or five months in those days and usually a single trip would keep the bear away from tourists. The problem is that the bears learned not to enter the culvert traps, even when they were baited with live animals. From time to time officials would euthanize a bear when they couldn’t find a way to keep it away from tourist locations.

Some bears, including Old Scarface, learned that mountain cabins were good places to raid for food. They learned to break into cabins through windows and doors and steal food. Once, Old Scarface went over the top of the Slew Creek divide and started working his way through the cabins on the main Boulder River. A group of volunteers was recruited to hunt for the bear. There is a long story of the bear hunt, including a forest service ranger who accidentally shot a horse. The local story is that the ranger was reassigned to the Everglades in Florida. I guess alligators don’t look like horses. Then again I don’t think bears look like horses, either. Anyway, as a result of that bear hunt, Old Scarface ended up at the taxidermist’s shop and eventually was mounted in a restaurant in my home town.

It took years for Yellowstone Park bears to resume more natural patterns and diets. For a long time you could take a drive through the park and not see a single bear. These days bears that are sighted are usually spotted from greater distances and move away from tourists with their cars and cameras. I haven’t read of a tourist injured by a bear for quite a while. The tourists seem to have taken their risky behavior in search of photos of buffalo - American bison. Most years there is at least one story of a tourist injured while engaging in risky behavior around the animals in Yellowstone Park or in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I guess park officials can only go so far in their attempts to protect people from their own stupidity.

I recently read an article on the BBC website about the reintroduction of bears into the Alps. Bears had been hunted to extinction in the Alps and about 20 years ago a project in Italy reintroduced the apex predators to the mountains. Bears from Slovenia were transported to the Italian alps and released. The project exceeded expectations and the population of bears in the region grew to around 100 individuals. A series of recent attacks by bears against people, however, has raised concern. Are some of the returned bears becoming too dependent upon humans and too aggressive in their feeding patterns.

Bears get really hungry and grumpy at the end of the summer. As the weather turns cold they are voracious eaters, preparing for hibernation. Then again in the spring, when they emerge from hibernation, they come out hungry and aggressive to get food. Females with cubs are particularly aggressive when humans come too close.

Humans and bears have an uneasy relationship. Bears are quick and strong and an unarmed human being is no match for the bear’s vicious claws and teeth. While naturally shy and quick to run away from humans, bears can become bold and more aggressive with repeated exposure to humans. People seeking solitude have built cabins and homes deep in bear country and there can be real fear when there is too much contact between the animals and people. Bears don’t really hunt humans as part of their diet. Attacks are generally defensive moves against a perceived threat. The problem is that some human behaviors, such as jogging or running in the woods can be seen as a threat to the bear when no threat was intended. European bears have made headlines recently after a few high profile attacks have resulted in injury and death.

A healthy dose of caution and common sense can go a long way in providing safety for people who travel in bear country. Public education is one key to insuring the survival of bears in the wild. Stories of predator attacks stirs ancient fear in humans, however, and some people advocate removing all of the bears from certain areas. The controversy will continue.

In the meantime, Alaska is a good place for humans to view bears. I hope to make that trip one day. I’ll be careful to avoid jogging or hiking alone in bear country. After all, I got to see Old Scarface before his career turned to burglary and his fate was sealed.