CAMPING WITH BEARS                                                                Greenbuilders Newsletter No..5 “DO NOT TALK ABOUT BEARS!”  I directed my friend Chris, who continued to offer the kind of advice which sounds reassuring but actually produces anxiety.  I was about to embark on a solo camping trip to Tuolomne Meadows in Yosemite, and Chris was the fourth person I shared this great news with who mentioned … bears. Long ago I had a couple of nervous outdoor nights in campgrounds shared with bears, but I had kind of forgotten it.   When I pulled into the Tuolomne campground as the sun was setting, it did not help to see an enormous barrel-shaped contraption made out of cast iron and prominently labeled “Danger!  Bear Trap!”  The camp literature as well as posted signs scattered about asked me to “Protect our Bears!”  Frankly, at this point that was the last thing on my mind.   So far, probably typical tourist.  I had a chat with the ranger at the gate, and came away much reassured.  Brown bears, not aggressive.  Not much activity this year, no food stolen.  “Our bears were very good this year” she said.   Nonetheless as I settled into my tent for a night which unexpectedly dipped to 28 degrees (!), I was nervous.  Everything with an odor, including soap and shampoo, was locked in the bear-proof container provided in the campground.  Visiting bears are supposed to check that you clipped the clip to secure the door, maybe rattle the thing a little or clump around, and then leave.  Br-r-r (that’s brr not bear). I think it’s important to recognize what we – women and particularly men – have achieved in beating back raw nature to the point where we can live in relative comfort and safety.  How many guys with fur and clubs went out into the night, maybe never came back, so that their line could survive.  Nature was frightening, unknown, and vastly powerful and unpredictable.  In the past couple of centuries, cataclysmic natural disasters have become the exception rather than the rule.  People – primarily men again – working in laboratories, garages, and corporate offices, have developed a technology (and industrial and economic machinery to deliver it) which keeps many of us safe and comfortable much of the time.   As an environmentalist, it is foolish and naïve to ignore this recent history.  We are working in a context not of abuses, but of triumphs.  What we need to do is ask those who have defended our welfare – and that is all of us – to moderate our attack on nature and start protecting our bears. During the next few days, I made this shift myself.  In the morning at the water tap I found a poster titled “What’s that noise in the night?” which explained that park staff might be heard chasing away bears from the campgrounds, using firecrackers (!) and occasionally Karollian bear dogs (this I have to see).  The point was to restore the bears’ natural fear of humans.  We were advised to never leave a bearproof container unlatched and to leave no food beyond arm’s reach where it would be tempting.  If we saw a bear, advised the poster, we were to yell at it and bang pots and pans together (!!!) … to restore it’s natural fear of humans.   What this means is that with respectful care, people didn’t get hurt and bears learned to go back to nature, as they seem to have done in this particular campground.  They’re not stupid and if raiding the campground doesn’t work, they stop.  That doesn’t mean tragedy can’t strike, but that doesn’t stop us from driving cars, and it shouldn’t impel us to eliminate all other life forms because of occasional accidents. By the third night, I listened more in anticipation than fear for a bear investigating my bear-proof container, and was disappointed not to receive a visit.  Quite a shift, but there you are. I don’t think anywhere in the Bible does it say that God created us to be the ONLY life form.  I don’t think it says that in any sacred writing.  My concern about urban life is that it has become/is becoming a place where people, pigeons, ants, and cockroaches are all you get.  Lord help us when we decide that cats and dogs are too much trouble, as some of us have done with living plants, replacing them with plastic flowers.  Now that I live in the country again, I’ve learned to be comfortable with lots of snakes and the occasional mice who escape them, and to see other life forms with tolerance, not horror, fear, or repulsion, to hear the racket of frogs and be glad they’re out there instead of trying to silence them. This has taken some doing.  I worry about the many people who cut down even the trees surrounding their houses, for fear they will fall on them.  There are ways to share our space with life other than human beings.  It takes a little work, but it is, well, more human. The morning I left Yosemite, I wandered across one last meadow, quite early.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw first one, then another little scampering shape which popped upright, motionless.  Yep, prairie dogs.  In my absent-minded way I realized that they’d be on the hill I was on if I weren’t there.  I stood very still, and out popped a prairie dog just ten feet or so away.  He/she scampered, twisted around to watch me, sniffed, looked, wondered.  It was early sunrise, a gentle hopeful light, crisp and clear.  I was overcome by tenderness for that little living creature. In my religion, the Bible tells us to love our neighbor.  Couldn’t our neighbor be a bear? home