Can the grizzly survive success? By Doug Peackock

[montana500]

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-peacock3apr03,0,1257089.story


"THE FIRST Yellowstone grizzly bear I saw surprised me while I was soaking in a hot spring. I jumped up, nearly blacked out from the effects of the hot water, and then smashed into the closest tree, opening a two-inch gash in my forehead. Terrified, I scrambled naked up the tree — a pine that turned out to be no bigger than a Christmas tree. Fortunately, the mother bear and her cubs totally ignored me while I shivered in the 40-degree October air for half an hour — clinging to the upper boughs of the tiny tree, blue and bleeding like some large species of silly bird. Those bears got my attention.

That was 1968, and I had just returned from Vietnam in the middle of my second tour as a Green Beret medic. I was out of sorts with my country and estranged. Not unlike a wounded animal, I crawled back into the wilderness of the northern Rockies, where I ran into the great bears that so dominated the physical and psychic landscape. Self-indulgence is utterly impossible in grizzly country. These bears are things of great beauty; mystery married to danger. They can chew your rear off anytime they want (but they almost never do). It was exactly what I needed — the grizzlies got me out of myself so I could reconnect the threads of my own humanity. I think they saved my life. "

[Botany]

1. Go Bay Airs