Grizzly Bears

When my wife and I dropped off our youngest daughter a couple of years ago in Seattle at college we decided (since it was our daughter's freshman year in college) to go up to Whistler in Canada because we hadn't stayed there before. One of the more interesting experiences there at the Ski Resort was finding that many ski resorts now allow bicycle motocross during the summers to be able to open the slopes to mountain bikers which is a whole other business for them than skiing during the summers.

But, as we rode a gondola up as high as you are allowed to go (  there wasn't much snow then in the fall. However, on the way up we saw a mother Grizzly and her two cubs. My wife took a picture and then painted a picture of them since she is an artist. This was one of the big positive experiences there besides the beautiful countryside and mountains there. I also went with an ATV Group up one of the mountains riding a 4wheel drive 4 wheel ATV with this group.

But, I think overall seeing the mother bear and her two cubs was for us to see this in the wild sort of a once in a lifetime experience to actually see a female with two cubs in the wilds.

So, though it might take some adjustment now to put Grizzlies back into Washington state for locals, it might be nice to know they are there as long as people are prepared for contacts with them as grizzlies are very territorial and sometimes very difficult to survive for humans. But, the general idea of putting Grizzlies back into the Washington State Back country also sounds like a good idea to to help them from going extinct. I think the only other places with grizzly bears are Yellowstone, and Glacier National Park where they live in the lower 48 states.

I remember seeing Grizzlies in the wild only two other times in my life. Once I was 14 and it was in Yellowstone where people still fed grizzly bears from their car windows since it wasn't stopped yet. But, eventually too many doors were ripped off of cars because bears are very strong and people don't understand the human sanctity of a car. So, people were forbidden to feed the bears. This meant most people going to Yellowstone are not going to see bears at all. Because unless you feed them they are going to stay away because they don't like the noise of human beings and they are also very territorial like extra big Guard dogs.