COMING SOON AND ON TRACK
The Second Night of the Grizzlies
Fortunately, producers of the upcoming reenactment of the 1967 fatal maulings in Glacier National Park plan to stress sensitivity over sensationalism.By Bill Schneider, 8-23-09
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| The killer bear from Trout Lake, a 42-year-old photo by Bert Gildart. | |
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On August 13, 1967, exactly 42 years ago, as I start to write this column, everything changed for the grizzly and everybody managing the national parks where the bears live. It’s a well-known tragedy--two young women killed and partly consumed by two separate grizzly bears in two separate locations on the same frightful night, all so expertly chronicled by Jack Olson in Night of the Grizzlies, which might be the best selling outdoor book ever.
I was in college at the time, spending my summers working on Glacier’s trail crew. The park usually pulled us off the trails in August to fight forest fires. That’s what I was doing on that night, sitting in a fire camp on Apgar Mountain a few miles away from Trout Lake and Granite Park, the sites of the fatal maulings. All of us on the fire crew were huddled around a campfire listening to bits and pieces of broken transmissions coming over our fire radios, trying to figure out what was going on, but knowing it was bad.
That is, in part, why I’m so interested in the yet-to-be-titled documentary coming soon from Montana PBS. In it, producers plan to revisit the darkest night ever in the first hundred years of Glacier Park, the bear management profession and friends and family of two young women who didn’t need to die.
One thing that happened after the first two deaths caused by grizzly bears in any national park south of Canada was a seemingly endless series of magazine articles, books and Grade D films, all painting the grizzly bear as a bloodthirsty, man-eating beast. It was even suggested that the federal government kill all the bears make the parks safer for people.
It isn’t really a re-enactment, co-producer Gus Chambers told NewWest.Net, but more of a “look back” at what happened. “We’re not really re-enacting anything.”
He explained that, unlike most documentaries, this one will be “90 percent still photography,” both new photos and rarely seen snapshots taken by the survivors of the attacks overlain by audio drawn from recent interviews with survivors and other key figures in the attacks and the aftermath.
“We’ve interviewed all the principal people,” he explained, “and we’re trying to handle the situation as delicately as possible. They (survivors) only agreed to do it because we convinced them this wouldn’t be a sensational show. The interviews of the survivors are dramatic enough.
“It’s only dramatic because the events were so dramatic,” he continued. “We’re trying not to cause more fear of bears. That’s the last thing we want to do. Lot’s of people have contacted us, and they’re worried about our intentions, but we’re being as careful as we can be. We’re going to make sure nobody is the culprit, especially not the bears.”
This is welcome news for people like myself who have closely followed the tenuous relationship between bears and humankind. The grizzly tends to generate drama by its very existence and has done so ever since Lewis and Clark formed the national image of the terrible big white bear of the American West.
Two hundred years later, the image still belies the facts. Anybody who has studied the situation knows that the chance of getting killed by a grizzly bear in Glacier or any other national park is so remote that it can hardly be statistically described---at least compared to real threats like falls, hypothermia and drowning, all of which claim so many more park visitors.
“This is about bears and how bears need to be bears,” Chambers assured. “People weren’t letting bears behave like bears back then.”
Stay tuned for more on the upcoming documentary, which is currently scheduled to air in February 2010.
Footnote: A 42-year-old photo used with this story was taken by friend and fellow outdoor writer Bert Gildart of Bigfork, who was one of the two rangers who shot this bear that was responsible for the Trout Lake incident. To read his story, click here.
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Comments
http://montanaelkhunting.blogspot.com/2009/05/swimmin-with-griz.html
The NPS had some bad management policies back in 1967, but there's no need to focus on that. It was OK to feed bears back in the old days, we know that was a mistake. Not point dwelling on it. Move on.
I sure hope the program explains the difference between food-conditioned bears, and human-habituated bears. Food conditioning is bad. Habituation? Not necessarily.
I doubt the program will mention that today's NPS backcountry permit system forces people to camp in risky places chosen by the NPS. The NPS should have relocated many of its designated backcountry campsites to less bear friendly locations decades ago.
I'll give you 1,000:1 odds a NPS representative states that black bears are more predatory toward people than grizzlies. Which is not true (Herrero & Tom S. Smith).
"On a related note, I found this blog to be disturbing, but oddly entertaining despite the fact that it is completely illegal and against my own values. I wonder if MT FWP knows about it? I wonder if its even true?"
Maybe you could elaborate on what is disturbing and what is completely illegal and against you own values. FWP knows about it, because the grizzly that was killed in the story, in 1978, was reported to FWP within 10 days of the kill. There was nothing illegal about killing a grizzly in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in 1978. It is true. I was there.
As for my values...Its quite simple really. I don't value, in any way, the 'sport' of shooting an animal for its skull and pelt. I find it disturbing and wasteful be it a brown bear, black bear or whatever one might decide to just shoot back in a place like Diamond lake and leave for the scavengers. That said, I completely respect your values, just don't share them.
I'm sure we can all agree, its an excellent campfire story.
Grizzlies were legal to hunt in Montana until 1989. The end of grizzly hunting in Montana was the result of a law suit(s), not the actual Act. During the time that grizzlies were killed in Montana, only 25 were able to be taken by lethal human means during any one year. That included those killed by cars and by trains along the railroad near Essex, Montana.
Thank you for your reply.