Rant time.
Whenever a posting on the web has a comment section, it is an invitation for the crazies to come out of the woodwork to present their warped view of the world. Here is an example of people who have taken a story about two of the things that are close to my heart (Yellowstone and bears) and went totally bonkers. Pardon me, but your crazy is showing.
Since I have told some people that I plan to take my family to Yellowstone next year I have been warned about the dangerous bear attacks there this past summer. My research showed that there was a strange bear attack NEAR Yellowstone.
Here is one headline:
Bear kills man, injures two near Yellowstone Park
By Laura Zuckerman
SALMON, Idaho
Wed Jul 28, 2010 7:33pm EDT (Reuters)
And here is one comment
Actually, Natural selection and inferiority killed this man. It’s high time we exterminate these meat-eating human beasts. They live an unsustainable lifestyle. It’s well known that humans flatulence warms our atmosphere. Yellowstone National Park must be closed to humans, and the area transformed into an Animal-Friendly geothermal power complex. This must be done immediately.
Really? How can killing all the bears be considered "Animal-Friendly"? And I'm sure that our dog, cows, and me are doing more are doing more harm than all the bears combined.
Want more?
Greetings from Canada.
It is amazing how the old Nazi belief in animal rights but not human rights is making a comeback in some places.
These bears are not endangered. Most of northern Canada is wilderness without any roads, farms, or human habitation. There are countless bears up there.
Despite this lunatics that work for the government insist on reintroducing these dangerous predators near human populations and the result is predictable. There has been an exponential increase in the number of people killed and maimed by bears.
In Roosevelt’s day there were few bear attacks because they killed every one that came near humans. Conservation did not mean having bears near people.
Since the bears are not an endangered species they should be completely removed from areas occupied by humans as was done in the past.
Neo-Nazis, I fart in your general direction.
OK, let's bring a little reality into this story.
Montana bear attack puts hikers and campers on alert
By Laura Bly, USA TODAY
... Wyoming, Idaho and Montana are home to roughly 1,300 grizzlies. Their numbers have rebounded since the 1970s and, although grizzlies still are listed as a threatened species, it's no longer rare for one lolling roadside to jam up tourist traffic (as they did during my Glacier trip). They've killed 10 people in Glacier and five in Yellowstone in the past century, and those parks average one grizzly attack with injuries a year.
That's 15 people in the last century as in 100 years. Be careful out there but don't be afraid to enjoy the outdoors.
And if you are wondering what could make a bear attack three different times in three different places in the same night I offer this:
Did photographer bait grizzly in Yellowstone attack?
By Laura Bly, USA TODAY
A week after a rampaging grizzly mauled a Michigan man to death and injured two other campers nearYellowstone National Park - and amid news that a black bear has been euthanized in another part of the park - officials are investigating allegations that a photographer had been baiting wildlife with food.
Forty-eight-year-old Kevin Kammer of Grand Rapids, Mich.,was killed, and two other people — Deb Freele from London, Ontario, and Ronald Singer of Alamosa, Colo. — were injured in last Wednesday's attacks at the Soda Butte Campground near Cooke City, Mont. The female grizzly was euthanized, and her three cubs were moved to a zoo in Billings.
According to TV station KTVQ in Billings, a viewer said the host of a campground near Cooke City raised concerns that someone may have been baiting bears two weeks earlier. At the same time, says KTVQ, similar information was posted on an unofficial Yellowstone National Park Facebook page. A spokesman for Montana's Fish Wildlife & Parks department told the station his agency is investigating.
"The key here is that these are just allegations," notes the Yellowstone Insider. " Baiting animals for the purpose of close-up photography and videography is a serious matter; it's illegal and is usually bad news for the animal, who becomes accustomed to human food and handouts. When the handouts end, the animals are left to figure out why - and that's when bad things happen. The baiting would explain why the bear kept coming back to Soda Butte Campground, seven miles outside the northeast entrance to Yellowstone, even after the killing."
Tuesday, reports the Billings Gazette, an aggressive black bear habituated to human food was euthanized in Yellowstone. The adult female had frequented a campsite in the Slough Creek region in the north-central portion of the park, which is popular with anglers, horseback riders and hikers. Since the bear had learned to associate people with food, rangers determined it posed a threat to the safety of park visitors.
Meanwhile, reader Steve Gager passed along a good backcountry safety video from the Yellowstone Park Foundation. It emphasizes that although attacks like last week's are extremely rare - most hikers, it notes, will never even see a bear - "the park is home to both black and grizzly bears, who provide a crucial part of a healthy ecosystem as both predator and scavenger."
Posted Aug 4 2010 8:47AM
I'm not saying this is what happened, but it could be one explanation. Bears are only bears after all.
I can't wait to go to Yellowstone again. I hope I get to see another grizzly in the wild.
