Transcript
of the Bear Talk Video
The Bear Essentials
by Ranger Michael Leach
Ranger Michael: I have a lot of history
in this area. My family is from Wyoming. I’m from Idaho. I live
in Montana in the off season, so this land means very much to me.
One of the things that means so much to me are the animals we are
going to be talking about today. We are going to be talking about
“The Bear Essentials” here in Yellowstone.
I believe by learning more about these animals we can better preserve
and protect them and their habitat, not just here in the park, but
all throughout the Greater Yellowstone Area. I think this is extremely
important because when these young junior rangers (gesturing to the
children in the crowd) 20, 30, or even 40 years from now, with their
children or their grandchildren, we hope that Yellowstone is still
the wild place it is today. I think it is animals like the bears and
the wolves that make this one of the most magical places we have on
earth.
Can anyone here tell me the two types of bears we have in the park?
Why don’t you tell me one of them?
Child in the audience: The black bear.
Ranger Michael: The black bear, that’s right!
And what’s the other kind we have?
Another Child: The grizzly bear.
Ranger Michael: The grizzly bear. So we have two
different types of bears here in the park.
This leads a lot of people to think that you are going to have a
great opportunity to see a grizzly bear and this is certainly one
of your best chances. There’re only about a thousand grizzlies
left in the lower 48 states here in the United States. That’s
extremely important because this is one of those places. So it you’re
not here in Yellowstone, or your not up in Glacier National Park your
chance of seeing a grizzly bear is going to be very small. Now because
of that, anytime someone sees a bear here in the park that is not
black, I think they tend to jump to the conclusion that it’s
a grizzly.
Anytime you get to see a bear in its wild and natural setting is
an opportunity that I am sure you will never forget but there is something
a little extra special about seeing a grizzly bear. So we’ve
got people who see bears all the time down by Tower. And they come
into the visitor center here and they’ll tell us “We saw
a grizzly bear”. And I’ll say, “Well, how did you
know it was a grizzly?” And they say, “Well, because it
was brown”. But then I’ll ask them more questions. I’ll
ask where they saw it and it will start to lead me to believe that
they were actually seeing a black bear. So I’m going to give
you some ways, that you folks now, can tell the difference between
a black bear and a grizzly bear.
They are not as easy to tell apart as you may think. Only 50% of
our black bears in the park are actually black. They can be blond,
cinnamon, brown, or black; the same colors a grizzly bear can be.
So color is really not the feature you want to look for. One of the
first things you want to look for is size.
Which animal is bigger? Does anyone here have an idea which animal
is bigger?
Child from Audience: Grizzlies.
Ranger Michael: The grizzly… they’re
definitely bigger. If you looked at a black bear, they are about 3
feet at the shoulder, and a female weighs anywhere between 130 and
150 pounds. That’s about what I weigh. A male black bear weighs
anywhere between 210 and 350 pounds. So they get much larger. Now
you are getting more into the size of maybe an offensive lineman in
the NFL. Although they seem to just be getting bigger and bigger nowadays.
Maybe in the old days, an offensive lineman.
When you look at a grizzly bear, you are talking about an animal
that is much larger. A grizzly bear is about 3 ½ feet at the
shoulder and a female can weigh anywhere between 200 and 400 pounds.
A male as a young yearling can be up to 215 pounds. And we have had
grizzlies here in the park that have gone all the way up to 700 pounds.
We’ve even had grizzlies that have gotten up to 800 pounds.
And the largest grizzly I’ve ever heard of, here in the lower
48, took place up in Glacier National Park, just a few summers ago,
and they believe that bear was over a thousand pounds. So these bears
are much larger.
Let’s look at some of these features you want to look for when
you are trying to tell the difference. Remember when you are talking
about size, sometimes it can be very hard to tell the difference when
looking at them from that great distance from which you should be
watching them.
(Holding up silhouetted profile images) Can anyone here tell me which
one of these would be a grizzly and which one would be a black bear?
Anybody have any idea? Let’s give you a try, (holding the silhouettes
up to a child in the front row).
(Child points to one of the images.)
Ranger Michael: Which one do you think? This is
the grizzly you think? What do you see here on this
one? Do you see this hump? (pointing at the hump on the grizzly’s
shoulder)
Does everybody see this hump?
(Taking the silhouette to another child) What do you think? Which
one do you think is a grizzly? You see, this is very hard to tell.
Everybody looks at this and always has a great deal of trouble trying
to tell. This is going to be one of the harder features. If you look
here. This is the grizzly and this is the black bear.
Now if you look here at the grizzly bear you see that it has this
large hump. If you look at their shoulder, they have a large hump.
You are not going to see that on the black bear. It is absent there.
So if you don’t see that big shoulder muscle, that hump, you
know it is not a grizzly bear.
You can also look at their behind or their rump. Does everybody see
the rump here on the black bear? You can see that it is even with,
or sometimes even higher than the shoulders whereas on the grizzly
bear it slopes downward so it’s shorter than the shoulders.
So that is the first thing you are going to look at is the profile.
Now you may have an opportunity to see a bear up close here in the
park while you are driving through places like the Tower-Roosevelt
area. And then you may get to see the facial features. (Holding up
facial illustrations) Does anyone have an idea? Can anyone tell me
which one of these is a grizzly and which one is a black bear? Which
one is a grizzly? (Pointing at one of the children in the audience.)
Child: Ummm, that one.
Ranger Michael: He says that this is a grizzly and
this is a black bear (pointing at the two different facial illustrations).
Does everyone agree with that? That’s right. How many people
here have seen a bison in the park? What do you see hanging…
you guys can all just yell this if you know it. What do you see hanging
from the bison’s chin?
Children: Hair, hair.
Ranger Michael: Hair? A big beard? That is similar
to what you are going to see on the grizzly bear. The grizzly bear
has what we call a long ruff of fur whereas that is absent on the
black bear. Also if you look at a grizzly bear it has what we call
a dish-shaped profile, or more of a curved profile to its face where
a black bear has more of a pointy and straight face. Also, no matter
what color that black bear is, they usually have a brown muzzle, a
light-brown muzzle. So those are some of the features you want to
look for.
Now one of the last ways to tell the difference between a black bear
and a grizzly is a way I hope you folks are never going to experience.
Because if this is the only way you are able to tell the difference
between a black bear and a grizzly, you are in a situation that most
of us would hope never to be in. And that is by looking at these (holds
up drawings of two different types of claws) the claws.
So does anybody want to take a guess here, take a shot, at which
one is the grizzly and which one is the black bear? (holding the drawings
up to a child in the front row).
Child: I think that the grizzly would be…..that
one (pointing to the shorter more curved claw).
Ranger Michael: (Holding the image in front of another
child) OK, which one do you think the grizzly is?
Second Child: That one (pointing to the longer,
less curved claw).
Ranger Michael: Well we’ve got some difference
of opinions here. We get that a lot with these black bears and grizzlies.
Of the adults in the audience, which one do you think is a grizzly
and which one is the black bear? Anyone have any idea?
Adults: The one on the left.
Ranger Michael: You’re saying this one (pointing too the longer,
less curved claw). This is the grizzly bear. The grizzly bear has
the longer, less curved claws whereas the black bear claws are shorter
and more curved. Now does anyone have an idea what that allows the
black bears to be very good at?
Child: Clipping and climbing trees.
Ranger Michael: Climbing. That’s right. Climbing
trees. Because when the black bear gets scared, they can run right
up a tree. I’ve seen black bears, when people get too close,
or a larger bear comes into the area, whether it be a grizzly or just
a larger black bear…sometimes even just lightning striking…if
they get scared, they can run right up a tree and they’ll feel
much more safe up there. Now does anybody think a grizzly bear can
climb a tree?
Children: No, no, yes.
Ranger Michael: I hear some no’s, some yeses.
I hear more yeses now.
Child: Some..some..some.
Ranger Michael: Some grizzlies can climb trees.
That’s right. You know, when you look at those claws, they are
not adapted very well for climbing so when a grizzly is younger, it
can climb a tree. But once they get up over 300 or 400 pounds, those
claws are not going to work very well for tree climbing. And the other
thing is that these grizzlies really don’t need to climb trees
because when the grizzlies get scared, unlike the black bears who
may flee and run up a tree, the grizzlies just make themselves big.
They get big and aggressive because although the wolf is the top predator
here in the park, the grizzlies really fill the top of the food chain.
So they don’t have much to worry about.
Well let’s talk about where you can see these animals in the
park because I am sure all of you folks would like to see a bear in
the wild while you are here in Yellowstone. It’s really one
of the great symbols of this great park, this world’s first
national park.
Now, I’m going to talk about black bears first. Let’s
talk about their habitat, where you can see them. Black bears like
to spend most of their time in or near small openings within forested
areas. So if you look up on that hill, does that look like good black
bear habitat to you guys? Nope, that’s not good black bear habit.
But if you look up behind you, up above the hot springs there, in
that forested area, that would be prime black bear habitat. Because
you see, not only is it forested, but you have those small openings
within the forested areas. They can graze, they can hunt, but if they
get scared, they’ve also got those trees available to them.
So probably your best chance of seeing a bear anywhere here in the
park is going to be in between this point, where we are standing now,
going out on this road to Tower-Roosevelt. That’s about a 40-minute
drive and we have bear sightings on a daily basis there. And that
certainly is going to be one of your greatest chances…that’s
going to be black bears primarily. Remember, they can be all different
colors. And even right here, anywhere in Yellowstone, you have an
opportunity of seeing a black bear. If you were out walking on the
Mammoth Hot Spring terraces about three weeks ago, you may have run
into a bear because we had one walking up the boardwalk trail.
Audience: Chuckles and laughter.
Ranger Michael: So they can be anywhere here in
the park. You certainly might want to head down to that Tower area.
Another place you could go is down by the Canyon and at Old Faithful.
Those can be very good places to look for black bear.
Well, let’s talk about those big boys and girls here. Let’s
talk about those grizzly bears and where you can find them. Now they
like to spend some time in or near those small openings within the
forested areas but they really like the big open areas, the valleys,
the meadows, and the mountain slopes. So if we go back to that piece
of habitat right there (pointing to the hillside with few trees) that
would be much better grizzly habitat. So where are the places you
are likely to see them? Has anybody here been to the Hayden Valley
where they’ve seen those big herds of bison? That’s a
great place to go look for grizzlies.
With grizzlies you are pretty much going to have to be up early in
the morning or late in the evening. They are dawn and dusk animals.
They are not as active in the middle of the day. So, I would recommend
the Lamar Valley in the early morning or evening, the Hayden Valley,
or if you go up to where the road is closed up by Mt. Washburn, up
by Dunraven Pass, there’s a place called Antelope Creek and
we’ve seen a grizzly down there quite a bit recently, and it’s
a blond grizzly, which is kind of rare in this ecosystem. You really
can see it from quite a distance and man is it spectacular to see.
I got to see that bear and it is something I’ll never forget,
was getting to watch that blond grizzly bear.
So can anyone here tell me what these bears do in the winter? They
do something kind of different.
Boy in Front Row: They hibernate.
Ranger Michael: They hibernate. And what’s
hibernation? Do you know what hibernation is?
Young Visitor: Sleeping.
Ranger Michael: Sleeping. That’s right. They
go to sleep. Now they sleep a lot longer than we do. These bears can
sleep for up to 6 months here in North America. Here in Yellowstone
they generally sleep, or hibernate, for about 4 ½ months. From
the end of October until mid-March.
Now does anybody think they ever wake up during that hibernation?
I see some nods. That’s right. They can wake up. If they get
hungry enough they may leave hibernation and go look for some food.
And if it’s a female who just got rid of her cubs the previous
summer and mated with a male, she’s probably going to wake up
in January or February to give birth to an average of two small cubs.
Now these cubs look nothing like the cute cubs we see on the cover
of the cover of the calendars because when they’re born they
only weigh about 1 lb. 6 oz. and they look much more like rats than
they do bears. They have no hair. They have no teeth. Their eyes are
closed and they will spend the next 2 months suckling, or feeding
on their mother. By the time they come out in mid-March, now they
look much more like those fur-balls that we see on the cover of the
magazines, on calendars, and here in the visitor center.
So I’d like to talk a little bit about the food habits of these
bears. Because I’d like to dispel a myth, because when you’re
talking about animals like wolves and grizzlies, there’s a lot
of mythology surrounding these animals. There’s a lot of stories
surrounding them, and sadly some of these stories aren’t true.
And this is a myth I’d like to dispel right away about the grizzly
bear because 80 to 90 percent of the grizzly bear’s diet is
green vegetation. So for most of us who eat meat, we end up eating
more meat per year per pound of body weight than a grizzly bear does.
So that’s hard for a lot of people to believe. You hear the
term “flesh eaters” and sometimes you hear terrible, terrible
terms like “man-eaters”. These are thing I’d like
to dispel right away because remember that 80 to 90 percent of their
diet is green vegetation.
So what do they eat? I’m going to talk about the grizzlies
first. When was the last time any of you guys skipped a meal? Has
anybody here skipped a meal since you‘ve been in the park? We
won’t tell your parents about it. I won’t talk to them.
(Audience laughs) If you skipped a whole day of feeding then I may
talk to your parents. Now I can’t imagine what it would be like
to go all day without eating. I almost skipped lunch today, but I
knew I had this talk to give to you folks. I wanted to be up for the
talk and I felt like I couldn’t skip lunch.
So can you imagine what it would be like to go four and half months
without eating?
Well when they come out of hibernation, they're very hungry. And one
of the most important food sources for black bears and grizzlies is
something we call carrion. This is meat; it’s animals that are
dead. They didn’t make it through the winter. Whether another
predator took them down or whether they starved because the winters
here are very harsh. We have so much snow that sometimes these animals
just don’t make it through the winter and if you’re a
bear, and you come out and you have all this fresh meat. This is great,
because the bears are not very efficient hunters. They’re not
really good hunters so although they love meat if they if they can
get a source like this, they’re certainly not going to pass
it up. They’re not going to get a chance to take down animals
like wolves and mountain lions do. They’re not quite as efficient.
Now they will get that carrion early in the season.
What’s another thing they will get? Well, elk calves. Both
black bears and grizzly bears will go after elk calves. But after
the elk calves are about three weeks old, they’re generally
fast enough and fleet enough to stay with the rest of the herd and
they’re usually safe from those bears.
What else do they like? Spawning cutthroat trout. In the months of
June through July, about a one-month time period, the cutthroat trout
spawn here in the park and the grizzlies can often be found in these
spawning areas and they love that food source. But after those three
food sources, they’re not going to get much meat. About the
only other time they’re going to get meat is courtesy of what
may be their new best friends here in the park - the wolves. Now the
wolves would not call the bears their best friends because these wolves
risk their life taking down animals, and then the grizzlies will often
come in and kick them off the carcass before they even had a chance
to dine on that meat that they risked their life to get.
So they will get that food source, but the two most important food
sources for the grizzly bear are two very small things. One are the
little seeds in the white bark pinecone. How many of you guys have
ever opened up a pinecone to see how small those seeds are? Well we
have a tree here called the white bark pine and they have cones with
these little seeds that are very important to the grizzly. The grizzlies
have both the tree and also the squirrels to thank for this food source
because the squirrels are very neurotic, especially here in Yellowstone.
They're trying to put away as much food as they can so they can make
it through the winter. So they’re opening up those cones, they’re
burying those seeds they’re making what we call “middens”
or food caches. But they don’t find probably half of those food
caches, so the grizzlies go through digging. They’re very efficient
diggers. Remember those long claws and that big hump? That makes them
very good at digging. I watched a grizzly about two months ago with
two cubs for four hours up on Swan Lake Flat just up the road here.
She never stopped digging. When I went up the next day, it looked
like a backhoe had been through there. So they will do a lot of digging
and they love those little nuts because those little seeds that give
them a great food source that’s high nutritional value.
The other thing is a little moth, a moth about this big called the
cutworm army moth, and they can find these up at the high elevations.
They will dig under the talus slopes and remove those rocks and those
grizzlies can consume up to forty thousand of those moths in one day.
So those are some of the most important food sources for these animals.
The black bear, which is this bear that we’re looking at right
here. (Ranger Michael points to bear skin). Their diet is very similar
to the grizzly’s, but since they are good at climbing, sometimes
they can also be found foraging up on the tree mat located on the
tree trunks.
So how many of you folks really want to see a bear here in the park?
(lots of hands go up)
Hopefully you’re going to get a chance to see one and believe
it or not your best chance of seeing one is from along the road. You’re
generally not going to see animals in the backcountry as much as you
are in places like the Hayden Valley, the Lamar Valley and down by
Tower – Roosevelt. So that’s how I would recommend looking
for these bears in the park, early morning and evening hours.
Can anyone here tell me how far we have to stay from these bears
if we see one though? Does anybody know? How about you?
Child in the audience: 100 yards.
Ranger Michael: 100 yards. That’s right and
that’s quite a distance.
Do we have anybody who plays football here or watches football on
television?
That’s the full length of a football field. If we look at a
grass field, we’re in here, this is close to 100 yards, it’s
a little longer but that’s about how far you’re supposed
to be staying from those animals. Now how about other animals like
elk here in the park sometimes we have elk standing right out here
in the grass. How far should you stay from them? You’re not
sure? OK, anybody else?
Child in audience: 25 yards.
Ranger Michael: 25 yards, that’s right. So
25 yards, it’s a little shorter but you still want to give them
their space especially when you see these elk or the bison. A lot
of people think that it’s safe to get close to them but you
certainly don’t want to get bumped and these animals are not
tame. We’ve had people injured every year by animals like that.
So when you’re out driving and you’re looking for them
you want to have your spotting scope if you have one or your binoculars,
because I feel that’s one of the best ways to view predators
here in the park. Because then you’re giving them their space.
You’re getting to see them in a wilderness setting instead of
a zoo setting. Because if people get too close, you’re not getting
to see that bear behave naturally in its wild setting. So hopefully
you’ll get to give them some space.
So when you’re out driving in these areas to look for the bears,
if you see one or you see a large group of people because we get “bear
jams” generally wherever those bears are seen in the park you’re
going to pull over. Hopefully you parents can get all four tires off
the side of the road so everyone else will get a chance to see the
bears as well and then you may get a great opportunity to see a bear
here in the wild, maybe even a grizzly bear.
How many people here are planning on hiking? Because hiking here
in the park is really incredible. This park is 2.2 million acres in
size so it’s huge and you’re just seeing a small fraction
of it from the road so I recommend getting out on the trails. But
a lot of people don’t want to get on the trails because they’re
worried about grizzlies. Now remember, there’s not much to fear
from these animals. They’re not the “flesh eaters”
that we’ve made them out to be. And believe it or not, these
bears want to see you less than you want to see them. If they hear
you coming, they’re generally going to get out of there.
So I’m going to talk about how you can stay safe hiking here
in bear country. I go out almost every weekend and a lot of times
during the week and I’ve never had any problems with running
into bears. I’ve had one close bear encounter and it all worked
out fine, because I did what we’re going to talk about here
right now.
The first thing we’re going to recommend is that you hike in
groups. We don’t recommend that you hike alone. We average one
bear related, human bear related injury per year, bears injuring humans.
That’s all we average here, compared to 48 injuries a year back
in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. We’ve already had that injury this
year. So that’s not to say that you folks should not worry about
this because we could have many more if people aren’t taking
the right precautions.
Now this young man ended up doing the right thing once that bear
charged. And this shows you these bears don’t want anything
to do with you, because you can imagine with two grizzlies, this young
man ran into two grizzlies, the damage they could have done to a young,
roughly 21 year-old man. And he walked away with minor injuries. So
if you take these precautions you can stay very safe. So hiking in
a group is recommended; two or more, four is really the ideal number,
the more people the better.
Another thing is making noise. Now you’re going to hear a lot
of people and see a lot of people with bear bells and especially up
in Glacier National Park. They seem, those bear bells just seem to
fly off the shelves up there. The bears up there are concentrated
in a smaller area. So I think that makes people a little more wary
than hiking here in Yellowstone. I don’t recommend those bear
bells, because one, I think it gives people a false sense of security.
Another is those bears may not even know that sound. That sound can
sound like something very natural and the noise also doesn’t
carry as far, doesn’t project as well as the human voice. And
those bears who know the human voice generally don’t like it
and they want to get out of there. So I recommend just talking, just
like I’m doing right here as you’re walking along and
if you’re coming up over a hill and you can’t see what’s
over that hill or you’re coming around a corner, a blind corner,
this is where we recommend maybe clapping your hands (Ranger Michael
claps) and yelling “hey, bear” When I come around a corner
I’ll say, “Hey, bear.” (he claps again) “Hey,
bear.” Everybody do that with me.
Audience: claps, shouts “hey, bear”
and giggles.
Ranger Michael: I assure you if we were all out
hiking right now there’s probably no chance of us running into
a bear. The problem with this is that we probably wouldn’t run
into other animals either and this is a problem because people want
to see elk and they want to see bison and pronghorn when they’re
out hiking. But you don’t want to run into a bear at close range
both for your safety and for the safety of that bear.
So let’s talk about what we do if we do come around that corner
and that wind is blowing right in your face and that bear wasn’t
able to hear you and how you’re going to react. If I come around
the corner, this gentleman here, if you wouldn’t mind standing
up sir, this is going to be my bear.
Audience: laughter.
Ranger Michael: So I come around the corner. There
he is. That’s my bear and boom, I see him well the first thing
I’m going to do is I’m going to try and pay attention
and I’m going to try and notice did that bear see me? Because
if it didn’t see me, if it’s just grazing which is often
the case, I’m going to slowly back away, I’m going to
give it its space, I may get behind a tree I may get somewhere out
of sight where I may get the opportunity to observe this bear in its
natural setting, its wild setting. If it’s a large grizzly bear,
this also may be an opportunity for you to go back to your car and
start a new hike for the day
Audience: laughter.
Ranger Michael: But that’s really up to you
folks. Regardless of what you do you’d want to let that bear
pass before you continue hiking.
But what happens if I come around the corner, and I see that bear
and I definitely see that that bear has noticed me. And that bear’s
standing up on its haunches, maybe it’s sniffing, it’s
looking at me. This is where you really need to have some of these
skills to stay safe and if you do this you can stay very safe and
again that bear will stay safe as well. So I need some volunteers.
Can I get about 5 people? (lots of hands go up)
OK, you, you, you come on up, all you guys can come up, all you guys.
You want to come up too? Come on up.
7 children come up and join Ranger Michael
Ranger Michael: Alright, so you guys stand in a
line right here, OK? And we’re going to be hiking together.
We’re all hiking. I’m going to let you guys lead, because
I want you to run into the bear first, not me. So we’re hiking
and what happens? There’s the bear. Well we’re going to
get together in a group first of all. So let’s all group up.
And we’re going to slowly back away. OK, you want to come in
here with me? We’re going to group up, and we’re going
to slowly back away and we’re going to talk gently.
Now the problem is there’s two philosophies on how to react
with bears. Some people will tell you that with a black bear you should
make yourself large and be more aggressive. And I used to tell you
how to react both to black bears and grizzlies, but my problem with
this has become that when you come around the corner I can tell you
with first hand experience if you see a large bear and it’s
blonde, you may not be looking for that hump and that dish shaped
profile and you may right away just think it’s a grizzly and
if you react to a grizzly the way they tell you to react to a black
bear by making your self big, you could be in trouble. Where if you
react with a black bear the way we tell you to react with a grizzly,
you can still stay very safe.
So this gentleman, we’re going to react as though this gentleman,
this bear is a grizzly. So we come around the corner we don’t’
want to be threatening so we’re not going to look him in the
eye or her we’re not going to look them in the eye because they
see that as a threat so I’m going to use my peripheral vision,
so we’re going to look this way we’re going to keep our
eyes on this bear and we can slowly back away and talk softly and
say, “It’s OK bear. This is your home. I’m just
visiting. I’m not here to harm you.” Now usually that’s
all you’re going to need to do. I recommend if you have a pack
keeping that pack on because if the bear does charge, that’s
added protection.
But what happens if that bear is scared and that bear does decide
to charge? Because, remember what do the grizzlies do when they get
scared? How do they react? (The man pretending to be the bear puts
his arms over his head in a threatening manner and the audience laughs).
He’s doing it, they get aggressive they make themselves big.
So if this gentleman or this bear charged us, uh oh, here he comes.
Audience: laughter
Ranger Michael: If that bear charged us, this is
very important. You want to freeze. Now this may take nerves of steel
but you never want to move quickly and you never want to run, because
these bears again can climb trees and they can run up to 35 miles
an hour. And running or moving quickly may provoke an attack so we’re
going to freeze if that bear charges. And if the bear continues to
charge we’re going to hold our ground and most of the time,
I would say about half the time, what that bear is doing is what we
call a bluff charge. They will veer off at the end. They’re
just bluffing you. They’re scared. They want you out of there.
What do we do if that bear does decide to make contact? Now this
isn’t to make anybody scared or to bring any fear when you’re
out hiking there in the backcountry because this is so rare, but if
this ever did happen, and you have these skills, you can stay extremely
safe hiking in bear country. So these are going to be my demonstrators.
So let’s say that a bear has just made contact with us. It just
made contact with us. We’re going to get down on the ground.
We’re going to get down so lay on your stomach. Everybody lay
on their stomach.
(The children lay face down on the grass.)
Now I want one person. Let’s have you here. (Ranger Michael
picks the last boy in the line). Let’s do you. If you folks
could move in a little bit. If you get in the fetal position. So you
get up in a ball like this. So he’s in the fetal position. You
guys all stay flat. This is what we used to tell everyone to do. But
what I’m going to tell people to do is clasp the back of your
head. Clasp the back of your head, clasp it like this. Dig your elbows
into the ground, spread your legs, and dig your toes into the ground,
because what this bear is going to try and do, is it’s going
to try and roll you over. It’s not going to try and eat you,
but it’s going to try to show you that it doesn’t want
you around. So it may try and roll you over. You want to try and resist
it from trying to roll you over. You don’t want to fight it,
but you want to resist it, and if it does roll you over, get right
back on your stomach. And you can see if you get in this position,
and you lock your toes in, and you lock your elbows, back of your
head, back of your head, right here, and you do that, and you can
see. (Ranger Michael tried to roll the children onto their backs and
can’t). Look how hard that is to roll. That bear’s going
to get in here. Look at how hard that is to roll.
Now let’s go over to the way we used to tell you. (Ranger Michael
easily rolls the boy who is in the fetal position over)
Audience: laughter
Ranger Michael: You can just keep rolling. So that’s
what we wouldn’t recommend. Now he’s in the fetal…
now let’s get in the regular position. And he learned he wasn’t
doing it right. Now he’s much harder to roll. So that’s
what we would recommend. Now sometimes bears come down in this area.
Let’s see how effective you guys are with the skill. We’re
all going to get a little something to eat, and you guys stay here
for a little bit and we’ll be right back. Let’s give them
a hand. (Audience claps)
That’s how you stay safe in bear country. Now what happens
in this instance? You want to wait till that bear leaves the area,
wait till it leaves the trail before you get up and continue hiking,
or head on back down to the car. Hopefully you’ll come into
the visitor center and tell me all about this, because I’d like
to write a book about bears one day and this would work great.
So, I think we can stay very safe here in bear country. Hopefully
you’ve learned how to tell the difference between a grizzly
bear and a black bear; you’ve learned to dispel some of the
myths about what these bears eat; you’ve learned more about
their habitat and where you can find them here in the park. And now
hopefully you’ll have a chance to see one of these great wild
creatures here in Yellowstone because I do believe that if we can
continue to understand this animal and gain a greater appreciation
for this animal we can better protect and preserve them not just here
in this park but in the entire Greater Yellowstone Area and all throughout
North America.
And to me, not only do we need to protect these areas for our health
and for the survival of these species, but I think it’s important
we protect these places for our spirit. And certainly I think it‘s
the animals like the bears that lift the spirits of millions of people
that come here from all over the world. So I hope you guys all have
a very special journey here and maybe you’ll even have a chance
to go see a bear. And if you do, come on into the visitor center and
tell me your story. Just go on and have a great time in Yellowstone.
Thank you very much.
(Audience claps enthusiastically).
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