Wild Things

This spring I read two books about vanishing species and the people who are trying either to save them from extinction or save themselves from a beast humans have feared for millennia. The first was The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant. Vaillant's book recounts the story of a vengeful tigress in the taiga of far eastern Russia who killed at least two hunters, both of whom it is theorized had antagonized the tiger previously, perhaps even poaching. The vengeance in the title is the tiger's though eventually, of course, a group of hunters tracks her down and kills her. The second, Ghost Grizzlies: Does the Great Bear Still Haunt Colorado?, is different in scope, geography, and emphasis. Author David Petersen tells the story of the grizzly in Colorado and offers evidence that the bear still survives in the backcountry of the San Juan national forest in southwestern Colorado.

The two books really do not have a lot to do with one another. Vaillant's book offers a portrait of life at the edge of humanity, in a place where tigers and men butt up against each other and for the most part have learned to live together. When one tiger attacks a hunter and his dog outside of his illegal cabin the entire region is thrown into chaos. A special force specifically designed to perhaps paradoxically protect the region's tigers and put down tiger threats finds evidence that the hunter had shot and hit the tiger previously and that she had stalked him down, hunted him, eventually killing the man and mutilating his body. Injured and scared she was going to be a danger to anyone she came into contact with. An impoverished young hunter disobeyed the orders of the government, going into the taiga to hunt. He was killed as well. Eventually the tiger was tracked down and killed. And the region was free from at least that one animal.

Petersen's book about the San Juan grizzlies is part cultural history of our encounters with the great bear and part mythic tales of alleged sightings since the last confirmed sighting. In 1979, a full 27 years after the Department of Wildlife declared Colorado grizzly-free a hunter and his guide were bow-hunting elk in the remote San Juans. Hearing a rustle in the bushes, Ed Wiseman, the guide, was attacked. He pulled an arrow out of his sling and stabbed the bear through the freaking heart, like a total badass. The bear wandered a few steps away from Wiseman, lay down and died. Wiseman sustained serious injury but survived and continued to guide. The narrative from the various government agencies in the succeeding 35 years has been the same as it was from 1952-1979: "This time we know for sure that was the last bear." But there is a cadre of folks in the region who beg to differ, insisting that enough virgin land remains for limited numbers of the bears to roam free.  

I am neither the first nor the last to lament the loss of wildness from our world. There are pockets of wilderness and creatures still left in our world whose sublimity strikes fear into our collective psyche and for that I am grateful. God commanded us to steward creation and I don't think he meant to kill everything that frightens us and rape the land for profit. However, I am a city boy. For me the idea of a grizzly bear or a mountain lion or a tiger or a shark is a romantic idea. I have never lived in the taiga and had to wonder if I was being stalked by a tiger on my walk to school.

One of the questions each book poses in its own way is, what now? We humans have trammeled the land, hunted these species to extinction, and are still governed by a primal fear of the great predators. If the Department of Wildlife promoted grizzly rehabitation and one killed a hiker a holy poopstorm would rain down on everyone's heads. While my idealistic side says that it is worth it, they are not talking about reintroducing the bear in south Denver so the chances it would have any bearing on my life are quite slim (though my brother-in-law and I intend to use our family camping trip to Pagosa Springs this summer as an opportunity to search for grizzly). So many of us want to know that wildness exists out there somewhere. It is this that underlies the great and persistent appeal of the National Parks: elk! moose! mountains not being razed for coal mining! But then we go back to our climate-controlled environment and read Outside magazine. 

In other words, it is really easy for me to say Protect the Tiger! or Bring Back the Grizzly! because to do so costs me very little. And I do genuinely think we should protect these wild species. For one, they act as a much-needed check to our egos. Our reign on the top of the food chain would seem precarious if our sixth sense caused us to intuit a tiger was watching us and determining its next move, no matter the caliber of the gun in our hands. We need things out there that make us feel small. For another, the plight of such gorgeous creatures (I hope I can wrestle with a grizzly bear in the new earth and run with a tiger) underscores the effects of our darker impulse to conquer without thought to consequence.

In the end I don't know what to do in situations like this because I don't know what can be done. Is the population of tigers in the taiga genetically different enough to sustain itself over time, assuming its survival? The same question applies to the San Juan grizzlies. Suppose there are a dozen brown bears roaming the Weiminuche. Left to their own devices would they still be around 50 years from now? Is our intervention going to help or harm? These questions are vexing and necessitated by the way we have treated these creatures for so long. 
But the human element must be considered as well. I love grizzly bears and would thrill with the idea of sharing a mountain with one, but if one attacked someone and I had the means to stop it of course I would do so.

Maybe the lesson for Coloradoans pining for the return of the grizzly is the one the denizens of the taiga have learned and one that I am trying to teach my toddler son: sometimes you just have to share.