A place for my insights, opinions, observations, and photos
I’ve been fascinated by bears for as long as I can remember. In the 1960s when I saw the National Geographic special on the Craighead’s pioneering studies of grizzly bears in Yellowstone, it made me think that’s the sort of work I would love to do. I managed to do that in spite of the fact that I was raised in the Chicago suburbs with no early exposure to the outdoors or wildlife outside of Forest Preserves and Brookfield Zoo. My early passion was to try to learn as much as possible and understand bears as best I could, without much thought about what to do beyond that.
Now I’ve been working on bears since the late 1970s in all sorts of capacities from research and management, human-bear conflicts and bear safety. Most of my work has been on grizzly bears in northern and interior Alaska, but I’ve also worked as a bear biologist in Yukon Territory, on black bears near Fairbanks, and even a bit on polar bears. I’ve also helped with film crews and guided bear viewers. I’ve spent a lot of time around bears over the years and hopefully learned a bit of value along the way. I think I have some good insights and I see this blog as a way to share them.
The world of bear specialists is really rather small. Working for so many years I know many of them personally. They are in general a dedicated and great group of colleagues who share my passion. Some bear specialists have specific focus on nutrition, genetics, population dynamics, behavior, or have worked on bears in one place for a very long time. These sorts of approaches yield some fascinating, in-depth insights.
Although I never specialized on a particular aspect of bear biology, and haven’t worked on bears in one place for many years, I have been lucky to spend time getting to know bears in a number of really different situations that I think provide some interesting perspectives as well.
I’ve worked in some of the remotest parts of Alaska and also worked on bears in the middle of one of the biggest industrial developments. I’ve handled many hundreds of bears… and followed and observed bears that I handled. And I’ve been fortunate to spend extended periods at bear viewing areas like McNeil River State Game Sanctuary and Brook River in Katmai Park.
I’ve studied bears for long enough to know how inadequate my knowledge is, and that I don’t have any definitive answers. I’m still seeking better insights, and one thing I like about bears is that they will keep me interested and learning for the rest of my life. I welcome feedback, or reasonable comments from anyone who shares my views or disagrees with my perspectives.