Stop messing with bears in national parks

In my past life as a park ranger, I've seen people repeatedly approach big animals, the likes of elephant seals and Alaskan brown bears.

This is a continued, selfish insult to the lives of wild animals, many of which are already threatened and existing on just preserved pockets of their once bountiful habitat. It's true that many visitors respect wildlife, yet a vibrant strain of ignorance and naivety of the wilderness persists in U.S. culture, resulting in park visitors continuing to disturb or harass gregarious animals, notably the wild bison and grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park.

Most recently, the park charged a woman for disturbing wildlife after she approached and agitated a grizzly mom and her cubs, reports Montana's Billings Gazette. The woman is set to appear in court in late August.

You can watch the videotaped interaction on YouTube. A woman walks within 15 feet of the grizzly family group to take a picture. The mother bear, naturally defensive, bluff charges the woman to discourage her from coming any closer. Thankfully, there was no physical attack and lethal park response: Bears, even when not in the wrong, often lose.

If there's one crucial message to take away from this unfortunate event, it's this succinct reality: Bears, like all wildlife, need space. Giving them space shows respect and allows these wild animals the ability to live their lives unhindered by human threats or presence.

In Yellowstone, for example, visitors are required to "keep at least 100 yards (93 meters) from bears at all times and never approach a bear to take a photo." A similar regulation exists in Alaska's Katmai National Park, of Fat Bear Week internet fame: Visitors are told to keep at least 50 yards from bears at all times while at a popular bear-viewing site.

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Beyond respecting wildlife, keeping a smart distance from large animals also avoids serious injuries to people, or worse. Be like journalist Deion Broxton, whose avoidance of a Yellowstone bison herd went deservedly viral in 2020.

"Oh no, I'm not messing with you," Broxton said on camera as a bison came near.

In 2019, negligent people stood within 10 feet of a Yellowstone bison. The bison charged, resulting in a nine-year-old girl getting violently tossed into the air. In 2017, parents ignored a warning not to feed sea lions: The sea lion leaped out of the water, snatched a young girl and pulled her into the water (she survived).

Why do people approach dangerous animals? A prominent reason is many people today are out of touch with the wilderness. They might grow up in a world largely influenced by TV and urban life, without sufficient exposure to the natural world. At young ages, children miss crucial cues about natural danger. These cues shape their future understanding and views.

"There’s certainly not an innate knowledge of which animals are dangerous or not — it has to be learned," Clark Barrett, a biological anthropologist at the University of Los Angeles, California, told me.

So when children grow up and become adults, they might not have a grip on the realities and threats of the wild world. "It’s almost as if people leave their brain in their car when they go into the wilderness," explained Dan Blumstein, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Los Angeles, California.

But we're certainly not helpless. Listen to park rangers, educate yourself and those in your life when you enter the wilderness. Think about the animals: Give 'em space.