At national parks 90 years ago, ‘Don’t feed the bears’ was not the prevailing wisdom

Posted by Jeff on Aug 8, 2016 @ 9:36 am in Conservation | 0 comments | Last modified: August 8, 2016

On August 25th, take a moment to say “happy birthday” to the National Parks Service. It’s turning 100 years old. And my, how some things have changed in that century. Take, for example, how the parks deal with bears.

Today, the Park Service characterizes the possibility of seeing live bears – black, grizzly or polar in dozens of parks across the country – as a very special but far from guaranteed experience. It reminds park visitors that bears are wild animals, and it directs them to follow “bear etiquette.” That code of conduct includes the following exhortations:

– Respect a bear’s space.
– Never approach, crowd, pursue or displace bears.
– Let bears eat their natural foods.

It was not always so. In the early 20th century, according to Rachel Mazur’s book “Speaking of Bears,” bear-feeding spectacles were major attractions.

By the 1930s, calls to stop feeding the bears grew as the trash-nourished population swelled and more human-bear run-ins occurred. But it would take decades – and many killings of “nuisance bears” – for the Park Service to arrive at its current view that it is best to stay out of bears’ way and lock human food in bear-proof containers.

Read full story…