I am reminded of an experience I had as I heard that 4 times the number of bears are wandering about in Yosemite Valley during this shut down period based upon the news reports.
When I was making my film, I spent several nights in the Yosemite National Park with a wilderness permit in hand. I had just gone through an intensive filming permit process to video commercially in the park, and to do an interview with an interpretive ranger that was eager to talk with us.
We were just a two-person crew, my 14-year-old son and I, but Park regulations treated us like a full crew, we needed $1 million dollar liability insurance, and it was expected that another ranger be there while filming the first ranger.
After finishing the shoot, I was looking forward to getting out into the backcountry with my son. Yosemite is a beautiful place that I wanted to share with him before he went back to school that fall.
I got the required bear canister with the wilderness permit. In my excitement to hit the trail, I only got one canister. My first mistake.
Later at camp, I discovered there wasn’t enough room to store everything in it that night in camp, so I did the next best thing I knew to be bear safe. I threw a haul bag over the end of a tree branch, 10 feet from the trunk, about 20 feet in the air.
That night, a black bear came into the camp, and tried to walk off with the bear canister to make it “a drop off the cliff” pinata. Apparently, that is a real thing with this particular bear I later learned. Leaping out of the tent, I scared him enough to drop the canister. The haul bag was fine.
The next day, we saw more bears in the woods as we took our morning rituals. Later we took a long hike, and the same problem needed to be solved again, but this time we stacked logs and rocks on the bear canister to ensure its safety during the day. Haul bag went up the tree again.
When we got back later that afternoon, canister was there, but the haul bag was gone! No sign of it! No trash or scuff marks.
Next to the fire ring, there was an official complaint from a backcountry ranger stating that what I had done was illegal and he had confiscated our bag. It was a $3000 dollar fine!
I quickly decided we could go without toothpaste or desert. The ranger showed up later that evening with our stuff, and remarked that my haul bag had been properly placed, the best he had seen in a long time, but it was still problematic for the bears and illegal. He was a volunteer ranger and had worked for NOLS, National Outdoor Leadership School.
This particular black bear was going from the valley floor to the higher terrain every night based upon his radio collar data. The ranger offered to store our overstocked food in the bear locker at his camp spot which we happily did.
That night I thought I heard the bear come back again, and my bolt up right shouting from the sleeping bag, did more to scare my son.
On our final day there, the ranger came back, asked to see our permit again, which he documented. We got our stuff, and headed back to trail head to head home.
A month later I get a phone call from the official backcountry ranger, that I had been issued a summons by the mail. I could contest it by coming back to the park, to appeal myself at the courthouse there, or I could just pay the fine. What was my decision?
I went through the whole scenario with him again, hoping for some leniency with the fine.
In my plea, I said to the ranger, “that a better solution would be to shut down the park for a 100 years so the bears would be less dependent upon chasing human food. I concluded that I wouldn’t be coming back again as the bears belong there more than me.”
My fine was $100 dollars.
All of which is being put to the test now but it won’t be long enough to protect those bears from our own stupidity.
