One With the Tiger. Steven Church

Sam Gribley and his falcon, her brothers had caught and trained a Cooper’s hawk. Their work with the bird eventually led to them developing a relationship with National Geographic and a series of TV specials that introduced America to the outdoors-loving, naturalist-nurturing Craighead family. The brothers pioneered the use of radio collars and tranquilizer darts to track, capture, and study grizzly bear populations in Yellowstone National Park. One of their great successes and unique talents was combining conservation with entertainment, particularly with documentary film. They were something like the Jane Goodall of grizzly bears, exposing whole generations of Americans to one of the last great predators of North America, and perhaps staving off all-out extermination of them in the lower forty-eight states.

       Q: Mr. Haas, were you aware that there were grizzlies in the area? Did you feel that you had ample warning and were adequately prepared for encountering bears?

       Look, we went there to encounter bears. You don’t go to Glacier if you don’t think that might be a possibility. We wanted to see bears.

       Did you and Ms. Craighead see warnings from the national park about bear activity?

       Warnings? Like signs or something? The whole place is a warning. The trees whisper of it. You can’t be there without feeling the presence of bears. You can’t stand on a lightning rod and feel surprised when you get struck.

       Why would anyone stand on a lightning rod?

       Humility. How many times in your life have you sought out an experience that humbles you? You know what I mean? How many times have you, sir, ever been in a place where you are not the top of the food chain? Do you know what it’s like to be prey? It’s strange, really. And pretty cool. Kind of hard to explain. I guess it’s a unique intimate experience, a chance to know yourself better.

      HOW TO SURVIVE A BEAR ATTACK

      I wanted to toy with the student reporters a little, to lead them through tangents and digressions, to try and get their second-day stories off-track. I figured I’d just mention Alaska a lot, knowing full well that the attacks occurred in Montana. But what I also really wanted to tell them is that in Alaska, where the lines between civilization and wilderness are blurry at best, and nonexistent at worst, more people are killed by moose most years than by grizzly bears or black bears.

      Many of these moose-related deaths occur in yards, neighborhoods, parking lots, and along the roadside. Moose often graze along the roadways, where the weeds are kept back, the trees trimmed, and lush green grass is plentiful; and quite a few of these deaths have occurred because a tourist stopped his car to get up close to a moose or a moose calf for a photograph and was stomped to death by a 1500-pound animal that kicks with its hoof-armored front legs.

      “Moose are not horses with antlers,” I would say. “They are not domesticated or docile. They will kill you. But they won’t eat you afterward, which is a plus.”

      I thought that might get some laughs.

      Then I figured I’d take them even further down this tangent and offer some advice if you should encounter an angry moose in the wild. They are a lot easier to escape than a bear. Several guidebooks I read offer tips for escaping a charging moose, but it seemed the best survival strategy was to put a tree between you and the moose. When it charges you simply run around the tree.

      This sounded cartoonishly simple to me until I thought more about it. Moose can’t corner. It’s like a school bus trying to chase a motorcycle around a telephone pole. If only avoiding a bear attack were so simple.

      ACCORDING TO A NUMBER of sources I read before and during my time in Alaska, the number one tip for avoiding bear attacks is to avoid looking or smelling like food. You’re not going to outrun a bear; despite how fat and slow they look, a grizzly can run up to forty miles per hour. And you’re not going to fight off a grizzly or overpower it.

      It seems so simple.

      Don’t be food.²

      But surviving a bear encounter is more complicated than you might think. I read a lot of travel guides for Alaska when we visited there, all of which made special mention of how to avoid attacks. The more specific following tips on how to survive, taken from a website (unironically and unfortunately) called The Art of Manliness, are fairly typical of what I found.

       1. Carry bear pepper spray. Experts recommend that hikers in bear country carry with them bear pepper spray. UDAP bear pepper spray is a highly concentrated capsaicin spray that creates a large cloud. This stuff will usually stop a bear in its tracks.³

       2. Don’t run. When you run, the bear thinks you’re prey and will continue chasing you, so stand your ground. And don’t think you can outrun a bear. Bears are fast. They can reach speeds of thirty to forty miles per hour. Unless you’re an Olympic sprinter, don’t bother running.4

       3. Drop to the ground in the fetal position and cover the back of your neck with your hands. If you don’t have pepper spray or the bear continues to charge even after the spray, this is your next best defense. Hit the ground immediately and curl into the fetal position.

       4. Play dead. Grizzlies will stop attacking when they feel there’s no longer a threat. If they think you’re dead, they won’t think you’re threatening. Once the bear is done tossing you around and leaves, continue to play dead. Grizzlies are known for waiting around to see if their victim will get back up.

      Surviving a grizzly attack is difficult but not impossible. It’s unwise to surprise a grizzly, especially if he’s eating or resting in the alder thickets; and cubs, as cute as they are, will never be too far from their overly protective mothers. Just ask Hugh Glass about this.

      Within the first two weeks we were in Alaska, a grizzly attacked a local family of hikers outside of Anchorage. It was a well-traveled trail, one the family had traveled many times before and knew well; but a male grizzly had killed an elk calf near the trail, the sort of thing you can’t really predict in Alaska, and the bear was protecting his cache of food. Anyone on that trail would’ve been a threat to his food.

      Before he was done, the bear had killed a mother and her son and chased the woman’s fourteen-year-old grandson up a tree. The bear dragged off their bodies and ate part of the mother and her son before rescuers arrived and park rangers eventually killed the animal. The boy waited out the attack and listened; and I remember reading the story and thinking about him, about how the worst part must have been afterward—the waiting up in that tree and listening, the hour or more before help came, when he was alone with the bear and the bodies of his grandmother and his uncle.

       Q: Have you spoken with Ms. Craighead’s daughter?

       I don’t think so. My thoughts are a little jumbled. I don’t know if Brandi wants to talk to me, honestly. There’s no way I’m the one who survives. Janey was so much better in the woods than me, so much more comfortable.

       How did Brandi feel about her mother backpacking in bear country?

       What kind of question is that? I mean, how am I supposed to know that sort of thing? Do you imagine that there was a fight or something? Maybe Brandi hated that her mom spent so much time with me. Maybe she was jealous. Maybe she’ d called her mom the day before we left and told her it was crazy for her to go backpacking in Glacier. Maybe she mentioned bears, fucking huge grizzly bears that can kill you. Maybe she mentioned her long-dead father and asked, “What if something happens to you?”

       But did she say those things?

       I’m tired. My head hurts. You don’t . . .

       Do you think you’ll go back into bear country, Mr. Haas? Will you return to Glacier Park?