Camping with Bears

During the summer of 2006, I traveled up to Alaska to do some adventuring, specifically glacier traversing and hiking around in the backcountry. While I was not in the same region as Treadwell (he stayed along the southern Katmai coast, whereas I went more into the center of the state), I also encountered bears; albeit from a much longer distance. While this may not have much to do about the movie itself, I think it may have some merit as background information that might be useful in discussion.

Before my adventures in the wild, I had to do research on the indigenous wildlife and purchase the necessary equipment to reduce the riskiness of my trip. I had to learn about what to do if you accidentally came across a bear (or a moose, which are actually much scarier) and how to store food properly. The interesting thing I noticed is that the methods used to deter bears have changed considerably in the past couple decades. Here are some of the things that have changed:

Food storage is a challenge in the backcountry as bears have a very good sense of smell. As such, it is important to store any food or other things that may have a scent (i.e. soap, clothes that you have eaten food in, etc.) in a way that the bears cannot get it. Originally, this stuff used to be kept in “bear bags”, giant bags that get hoisted into a tree with the idea that it is out of reach for a bear. This plan has developed some problems in recent years as bears have learned to either climb the trees to get at the food or simply knock the whole tree down. The bear then rips the bag apart. The park service people also complain that the ropes damage trees. Additionally, there is the obvious problem of if you are hiking on tundra and there are no trees around to hoist the bag. Ultimately, this method is not recommended and even banned in some places.

The new food storage concept is these things called “bear barrels”. Treadwell had some of these in the movie I think (they were the big yellow canisters that we saw when he was unloading the plane). They are made of steel or extremely strong, resilient plastic. The idea for these is you just put all you smellable stuff in the canister, seal it up, and place it really far from camp. If bears smell the food, they will come, and beat the crap out of the barrel. Generally, these things are designed not to break and the bears will eventually give up (and then the next morning, you wake up and get confused because your food is in a completely different place than before). Ideally, this will reduce the impact humans have on the bear’s habitat since it is less likely for the bears to get the food and associate it with human contact.

Another thing that has changed is the method used to deter bears while hiking. It is a very good idea not to startle a bear, and so when traveling long distances through the brush, it is important to notify the bears that you are coming. From what I’ve read and experienced, bears really don’t want to be around humans and will avoid us if they hear us coming. The convention for many years was that hikers would get these things called “bear bells” that you tie to your backpack. As you walk, they ring – notifying the bears of your presence.

However, bears have recently been shown to have adapted to these bells. They associate the bell sounds with food rather than humans now (in the sense that if they follow the sound, there may be a bear bag around that they can get at, not that they want to eat humans as food). The natural park people don’t like this for obvious reasons, so now it is recommended that you just yell/sing/talk a lot while walking, since the bears still associate this with humans and will avoid you.

Finally, in the event of an encounter with a hostile bear, I also had the biggest can of pepper spray I have ever seen to protect me (approximately the size of a small fire extinguisher). I was instructed that using it is a last resource. Happily, I never had to use it.

Overall, my trip went very well and I did not have any close, personal contact with bears. However, I cannot help but think about the impact that tourism has had on the bear population in Alaska. I know that Treadwell did some crazy things that were quite possibly detrimental towards maintaining the boundaries between humans and bears, but I also feel that tourism is even more to blame. Treadwell is just one person in the thousands of tourists who come into the bear’s natural habitat each year. And while many are well trained and try their best to minimally impact the habitat, a few come in and create problems. A lot of these problems result from people just being stupid and disrespectful (i.e. feeding the bears, throwing rocks at bears, etc.).

While Treadwell may have been crazy, I do not think he was stupid. I seriously doubt that he would have been able to survive as long as he did if he did not exercise some caution during his endeavors. A lot of the problems with the bears in Alaska have to do with bears adapting to search for the food that we humans sometimes carelessly leave around. While Treadwell did do some questionable things like petting the bears, I have not read anything that says he was directly feeding the bears or causing them to come to him or other humans for food. The most I saw him do in the movie is move around some rocks in the river and pray (if that is the right word) for rain. Ultimately, I do not think that Treadwell was the biggest instigator of conflict between humans and bears; rather, I believe that these disrespectful tourists are creating the larger problems with bears.