Our Greatest Frontier

By Mark W. Danielson

I love Alaska. Over twice the size of Texas, it’s by far our greatest frontier. Everything is different there. Accessibility. Climate. Auroras. Most of all, attitude. Certainly, its remoteness contributes to that. Being a half a continent away makes it difficult for Washington to enforce their rules. And since most locations are only accessible by air, even the FAA has a milder policy toward Alaskan pilots.

Perhaps the thing I like most about Alaska is the Anchorage newspaper, which brims with local news. And why shouldn’t it? Who cares about events in other states? Its proximity warrants attention to Russian events, but immigration on the southern US borders carries little interest. To understand what I’m saying, I thought I’d share a few examples of actual headlines from the Anchorage Daily News.

Mountain Bikers Fend Off Grizzly Attack Near Hope. Now, this is an interesting headline because in most states, a “grizzly attack” would mean someone got knifed in a dark alley, in which case they might be closer to death than Hope. This biker’s problems began when he came across a grizzly bear with cubs. Like most moms, bears will stop at nothing to protect their young. In spite of being pounced on and bitten, this biker managed to fend off the bear with determination and bear spray, which I presume is standard equipment, comparable to carrying an American Express Card in LA.

Poor Run Shuts Down Nushagak King Fishery. Don’t you just love these Alaskan names? Actually, Nushagak is a river, and the king salmon have been so over-fished that the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game ended all king salmon fishing – even on catch-and-release. How about that? Alaska has a proactive state agency. What a concept.

Bear Grabs Bunny; Owner Gives Chase. Hey, I’m not making this up! The story goes: “A black bear snatched up a partially paralyzed pet rabbit from the owner’s yard and the rabbit’s owner gave chase. But she couldn’t rescue her bunny, named George, from the teeth of the bear.” Is this person nuts? My thought was God was calling this bunny home and the bear was his messenger. Kind of a win-win situation. And for some reason, the bear ignored the bunny owner’s cries to, “Stop! Stop! Give me him!” Now, if I were to write that into a story, no one would ever publish my work again.

Landing Jetliner’s Wing Hits Passenger Bridge. Okay, here’s one for the exaggeration-with-little-content category. “The United Airlines 757 struck a passenger bridge [meaning the off-loading bridge that extends from the terminal] after landing in Anchorage.” Please . . . It’s not like this 757 struck the Bay Bridge while attempting to land in Oakland. Amazingly, “Those on board were able to safely exit the plane.” Duh. The plane wasn’t going more than five miles per hour when it hit. Good old sensationalism at its best. Keep that in mind when you write. It may initially draw the reader in, but ultimately it will backfire.

Commercial Fishermen Report Strong Returns of Bristol Bay Sockeye. In keeping with the newspaper’s sensationalist policy, this article was posted on the back page while the one about the Nushagak fishery closing down was on the front page. Interesting, isn’t it?

So, there you go. One day’s worth of local news direct from Anchorage, only delayed by a few weeks. You can learn a lot from papers like this, like how locals interact, and what they are engaged in. If you’re writing about a particular location, newspapers can be a good source of understanding. It’s also interesting to note Alaska’s wilderness connection. The news may offer a different perspective from the ones on travel agency videos. The bottom line is know what you’re writing about before you ever touch the keyboard. If you don’t, it can bite like a bear.

Yellowstone’s Grizzlies are Disappearing

by Jean Henry Mead

Open season on grizzlies is reducing their numbers at an alarming rate in our nation’s first national park. Fifty-four of them died last year—37 shot by hunters—the highest mortality rate ever recorded.

Compounding the problem is the massive die-off of whitebark pine trees, whose nuts are the bears' principal source of food during autumn before they hibernate. The trees have been killed by invasive pine beetles.

The grizzly was placed on the engendered species list in 1975 after a similar massive die-off occurred following the closing of garbage dumps in the park and bears wandered into campgrounds and towns in search of food. During the fall of 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed the grizzly from the engendered list. So the bears have been killed in record numbers because they present a challenge to hunters.

Bear management has been turned over to Fish and Game in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, whose agencies apparently accept any hunter's excuse of self defense in grizzly territory. No hunting restrictions apply.

“Known mortalities," according to naturalist and outdoorsman Doug Peacock, is about half the actual grizzly deaths. “A hundred dead per year, no matter if the total number in the ecosystem is 200 or 600, means the population is crashing downhill. This is especially true for the grizzly, one of the slowest reproducing mammals.“

According to Peacock, no whitebark pine in Yellowstone Park will gain maturity within our lifetime, which will severely stress the bears and soon cause their extinction, helped along by no hunting restrictions. Some 80 percent of the trees have died and those remaining are producing fewer than normal yields.

Fish and Game and the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team met on April 15 of this year in Bozeman, Montana, to discuss the bears’ fate. They decided that the alarming number of deaths in Yellowstone was merely a “spike” and that better hunter education and use of bear spray as a deterrent would solve the problem along with a limited grizzly hunt in all three states.

Peacock, who attended the meeting, says, “The agencies believe it is the inalienable right of hunters to kill grizzlies whenever they feel the need or desire. The possibility of returning the Yellowstone grizzly to [endangered species protection] is unthinkable to this group. . . Nobody thought of asking the public, especially elk hunters, to take responsibility for causing these encounters with grizzlies or to give up anything in terms of hunting hours or access to reduce grizzly mortality. In my opinion, getting too close to a grizzly and precipitating a charge is always the fault of the human.”

The Defenders of Wildlife Organization enacted an "Adopt a Bear" program and asks for donations to "educate the public and purchase bear-resistant trash containers to reduce human conflicts with grizzlies." Unfortunately, it's not enough to save the bears. With an estimated 1,000 grizzlies remaining in the lower 48 states--down from 50,000--and dying off rapidly, drastic measures are needed soon to cure the problem, whether it means reenacting the ESA and/or relocating the animals to another area with adequate food, something needs to be done. Without the grizzlies, the elk and deer populations will increase, which eat the bark from trees and eventually destroy forests.

Peacock doubts that the current Interagency Team is up to the task. “They fought for delisting in the face of undeniable threats to the bear’s future as a species. Fresh, outside leadership is urgently needed.”

Photograph by John Eastcoff and Yva Momatiuk