Jackson Hole Underground

(Updated 6/27 with photos from the actual river trip, shot by passenger Paul Schnell)

I was back on the river yesterday, after a week’s layoff due to foul weather. The flow in Grand Teton National Park is surging, with the sudden arrival of sunshine finally triggering a melt-off in the high country.

Earlier I wrote about the experience of exploring the river in the park, and that’s the way spring has been: abundant wildlife, elk sightings nearly every trip, the uncertainty around each bend of not knowing just what you’ll encounter.

Last night, on the last of my three trips, I rowed into a small side channel. It’s quiet, and a good place to see wildlife up close, when animals happen to be there.

Within minutes I had spotted what looked like a large dirt clump on the side of the river. It was too large to be a beaver, but it wasn’t moving. We floated closer. A tourist asked me a question, and the brown shape slowly roused, turned around and looked at us with sad eyes.

“It’s a grizzly bear,” I said, and the tourists screamed.

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Sunday’s New York Times Magazine has a vivid article about black bears and humans in close cohabitation in Whistler, Canada.

The account of 90 attempted home break-ins and 1,500 calls to the bear-conflict hotline this year makes our bruin troubles seem relatively tame.

By comparison, in Jackson Hole in 2007, there were roughly 175 reported conflicts — more than the total of the last five years combined.

The situation in Whistler may presage what’s to come as hundreds of housing units are built at Teton Village, but also offers a lesson in coexisting with Ursus americanus.

Worth noting from the story: “Of the estimated 900,000 black bears in North America, on average only one causes fatal injuries to a person each year.”

Yet in Jackson Hole this year we have killed at least 16 bears, not counting those hit by cars or shot by hunters.

As writer Darcy Frey notes, “The danger of an encounter between humans and black bears is still borne almost entirely by the bear.”

I was saddened last week to hear that the mountain lion from last winter’s magical sighting was dead — as a result of its proximity to humans.

The lion, known to researchers as F30 but to me as “Simba,” starved to death after being moved from the Cache Creek area in early September.

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Were you freaked out by those photos of a mountain lion purportedly taken in Rafter J?

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is hosting a free workshop from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday at Snow King Resort, titled “Staying Safe in Bear, Lion and Wolf Country.”

Among the tips Game and Fish will share are mountain lion and bear feeding habits, where you’d expect to find those animals (not on your back porch in Rafter J) and what to do if you have an encounter.

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