When you hear people talking about bears around here you become utterly convinced there is a one behind each tree, jumping on your toothpaste the moment you turn away. In California states park up in the Sierra you have to sign the bear policy upon check-in. There is not much to it, simply leave no food and other scented items accessible to wildlife. There was not so much fuss about bears up north, there I had the impression the much bigger problem in parks were the racoons. And I think that is reasonable. It is very likely that people feed cute little squirrels (They do, I have seen it) and racoons, thereby accustoming them to humans but it needs quite a mixture of ignorance and bravery to actually actively feed bears. Of course when many people leave their food out in the open, always at the same place, that is the campgrounds, bears are likely to go there and look for it. But isn’t that a matter of common sense? The best thing I read was that human food was dangerous for wildlife because it contains so many artificial ingredients. Ever occured to you that it might be harmful to humans for the same reason? To make people care more the whole issue is turned into one of life and death. “Put your trash in bear proof dumpsters to save Yosemite’s bears.” Then again that makes you think they are close to extinction… There is not more to it that they have to shoot a bear that repeatedly comes too close to the campgrounds for safety reasons. Again quite common sensical…
Tales of the Queen 