Da Bears

The calendar says it’s spring and the weather outside seems like January (photo of granddaughter, Cammie, taken during a snow storm on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 in the Seattle area). But, despite the tenacity of winter the seasons march onward and the snows here in the valley of Whistler recede a bit more each day. I spotted a few sprouts of skunk cabbage poking their noses tentatively out of the slower sections of Crabapple creek this week. This means that any day now we should start seeing our black bears emerge from their long winter snooze and start wandering through our neighborhoods.

Whistler sits in the midst of vast tracts of forested mountains so we share the place with the bears, bobcats, coyotes and the occasional cougar as well as other wildlife including; grouse, deer, show shoe rabbits, eagles and osprey.

Last year a cougar got away with shagging a couple of mountain bikers… we have plenty of those and one or two would not be missed. However, he made the mistake of stalking a couple of Japanese golfers up in the foothills of the Chateau golf course. Even the skilled public relations folks for Whistler could not imagine dealing with the disaster of having a Japanese tourist turned into cougar brunch, so the cougar was sadly given the death penalty.

Whistler has a large and healthy population of bears and, for the most part, the residents and the bears coexist in relative peace. When we first moved to Whistler twelve years ago the town did a poor job of controlling garbage. There were open containers and dumpsters all over town. The town dump was wide open. Black bears spend the summer months as walking eating machines, to first recover from the long hibernation and then to pack on the pounds prior to heading into their dens for the long winter nap again. Bears, like humans, will take the easy way out.

Garbage provides the easiest source of calories for bears prior to the berry ripening in the fall, so bears in the bad old days were constantly found raiding garbage cans right in the village and dumpster diving near hotels and restaurants.

This brought bears and humans into conflict and close contact and, as a consequence, the authorities killed an average of 22 bears per summer.

About six years ago the resort got serious about controlling garbage. Truly bear proof garbage containers were devised and installed throughout the valley and a massive public education campaign aimed at both tourists and residents undertaken. The results were immediate. The elimination of problem bears dropped to 3 or 4 per year. Only the most aggressive and repeat offenders of the rules paid the ultimate price. Breaking into homes to raid the fridge or pantry seems to be the most serious offense. Minor infractions can get the bear a nice yellow tag in the ear identifying him as having been in trouble before.

For the most part the bears and humans of Whistler coexist in relative harmony. The bears are accustomed to us and wander through the residential areas and the golf courses seemingly ignoring us. I know of only one person being injured by a bear. That occurred last summer when a fellow came home and discovered a bear inside his house. The bear paniced and gave the guy a pretty good swipe while trying to escape. The only thing to worry about is a female with cubs. Mama bears are very protective of cubs and can be quite aggressive. They have to be especially wary of roving male bears that will kill the cubs. The males know (presumably from watching Dr. Phil and Oprah) that females who lose their cubs will immediately go into estrus and be available for breeding.

We got a first hand demonstration of this aggressive female behavior last summer. The top of Blueberry Hill right behind our house is a large park land of wild forest and jumbled boulders. Several bears hibernate in the caves and rest there during the summer months. The traditional path from Blueberry Hill down to the valley floor where they can find water and food takes them right through our yard. We frequently see bears making their way through our gardens.

One evening last June my fishing buddy, Rob, and I returned from an expedition and pulled up in front of our house to unload. Rob let his aging lab out of the truck to relieve himself. At that moment a young female bear and her cub were making their way down from the top of Blueberry. Spotting the dog the bear began to make a sound I never heard before, a loud (and I mean really loud) “whoomph, whoomph”. The cub shot up the nearest tree like he had a rocket up his butt and the female hurried to the very edge of the 8’ bank beside the road. We hustled the dog back into the truck, backed off to the safety of my open garage and waited for her to calm down. Eventually, she retreated to a position between her and her treed cub and we got my gear unloaded.

My only other encounter with an aggressive bear occurred on the Chateau Whistler golf course several summers ago. The fairways for the course are hacked out of the forested bench lands of Whistler Mountain and therefore encounters with bears and other wildlife a common occurrence. On this day I was playing with a couple of other young locals and as we rounded the hairpin curve leading to the 16th tee box we nearly ran into two bears. We screeched to a halt and immediately reversed back up the hill as the bears were only about 20 yards away. Since one bear was so much larger than the other we assumed that it was a female with her cub from last year. (Cubs will stay with their mom through the second winter before getting kicked out on their own the following summer.)

I climbed out of the golf cart and approached to where I could peek around the corner. I could see that the smaller bear was too big to be a cub and that the other guy was simply huge. This became even more apparent when he spotted me and stood on his hind legs giving me a hard stare and a threatening grunt.

I backed off but continued to watch as he started pawing the smaller bear around until, positioning himself behind her, he began to hump rapidly. Ah, sex on the tee box, and me without a camera! The whole act lasted a few seconds and afterward the two wandered off in different directions. No cuddling.

For the record… I was so aroused I double boggied the hole.

O My Kiss

The period between the end of hunting season and spring, marked by the opening of the golf courses and the start of trout season, is a long and dreary one. This can be particularly painful for those of us who have knees no longer suited for skiing and who have no taste for professional basketball or hockey. Here in the Pacific Northwest this wet and dismal season is alleviated by the arrival in our many rivers and streams of the steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), the official Washington State fish.

The steelhead, like its cousins the salmon, is an anadromous species, meaning it spends its adult life in the ocean before returning to its native stream to spawn. Unlike the salmon, the steelhead does not necessarily die in the effort, but if successful in negotiating the predations of fishermen, tribal nets and sea lions, may return again and again. As a result these fish, which are essentially seagoing rainbow trout, can reach 25 or 30 pounds. In the fast and heavy waters they prefer, they offer fishermen an extreme challenge. They have become for many an addiction.

The most effective method of fishing for these magnificent critters requires the use of a double-ended riverboat, preferably with an experienced guide on the oars. Negotiating the many rapids on the free flowing rivers of the Olympic Peninsula can be a dangerous and possibly fatal experience for a novice.

I have often said that the 15 or 20-mile trip down one of these wild rivers is worth the price of admission. That theory may soon be put to the test as year after year fewer and fewer wild steelhead return to their home rivers. Of course, we’re catching fewer fish but equally as important, we see almost no redds, the nests on the shallow gravel bars where the mating fish have spawned. In years past when we drifted quietly across the shallow gravel flats we could see hundreds of these. Now we seem surprised when we see one or two. In two trips of two days of fishing this year my fishing partner and I managed to land only two fish, a mere fraction of what we would see in years past.

In the face of my own admittedly anecdotal experience I decided to see if I could figure out what was going on. I could not understand why the State of Washington would allow fishermen to continue to kill and keep fish and permit the tribes to place nets in the rivers to intercept wild steelhead when the population appeared to be crashing. Bless the Internet. I located some websites and got the email addresses of a couple of guys in the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

They were cooperative in directing me to other sites where I could view the reams of data, court decisions and position papers on steelhead. Wading through all this stuff led me to the unhappy conclusion that my worst suspicions were correct. Catch records from the sports and tribal figures confirmed that the number of returning steelhead had declined precipitously. Unfortunately, and perhaps intentionally, data for the most recent two years was missing. If my own experience, and that of my guide who fishes these rivers 50 times per year is any indication, the last two years would show further declines to dangerous levels.

It just happened that while I was muttering about the plight of the steelhead, I was reading a book called The Unnatural History of the Sea by Callum Roberts, a fisheries biologist from England. In it he describes how we have been systematically destroying fish populations since medieval times. The pace has intensified as technology improved and the world’s population grew. The greatest villain has been the trawl, a heavy net dragged across the bottom that sweeps everything in its path. It captures not only the species sought, but also any other fish in its way, including juveniles and, in the process, destroys the coral, reefs and very seabed. It not only wipes out all the fish… it ruins the habitat necessary for reproduction.

As late as 1955 with the publishing of The Inexhaustible Sea man had still not learned the lessons of history. Over exploitation had already eliminated whales, fur seals and sea turtles. European waters had been cleaned of Atlantic salmon, herring and eels and countries competed by building bigger ships and larger fleets. They ranged further from their own shores to exploit new fishing grounds and different species. In North American waters the collapse of the cod, grouper and flounder, just to mention a few have occurred in recent history. Long line fishing for swordfish has decimated that species as well as threatening sharks caught by accident.

Things in the Pacific Northwest were no different. In his excellent book, Salmon Without Rivers, Jim Lichatowich describes the history of the decimation of the Pacific salmon through destruction of habit (logging, mining and dam building) and over fishing. Unwise hatchery programs contributed to the collapse.

The rivers of the Olympic Peninsula are unique. Flowing free and clean out of the Olympic Mountains and unobstructed by dams, they are perfect for supporting the wild populations of steelhead that have existed there for thousands of years. Yet the Washington DNR cannot bring itself to take the necessary steps to prevent the elimination of this wonderful fish from their native rivers.

In numerous email exchanges with DNR officials I have yet to get a clear answer. A lot of bureaucratic dancing around the issue leaves me frustrated. Their own data shows the sports fishermen are killing too many fish. (Many fishermen like myself have voluntarily gone to catch and release in the last several years). The biggest problem is the tribal nets in the rivers. The Indians are legally entitled to 50% of the catch. However, they have routinely taken 3 to 5 times as many fish as the sports fishers, and those are only the numbers they report. In talking to guides and lower level fisheries people in the area, it is clear that the tribal numbers are under reported. Worse, when illegal netting is reported the DNR does nothing. I guess it’s politically incorrect to clamp down on the Indians as they systematically net every returning steelhead. I guess we would not want to challenge the myth of the Noble Savage in harmony with his environment. They do, after all, sell these fish, not eat them. Turns out, they are just as greedy as the White Man.

I think what happened in the oceans and is happening with the Pacific steelhead is best described by a Garrett Harden essay entitled “The Tragedy of the Commons”. In it, Harden supposes a common grazing plot shared by many farmers. In his own self-interest each individual farmer is motivated to add a cow to his herd. The burden of this added animal is shared by all. Eventually, when enough farmers have increased their herd, the common grazing plot is destroyed. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The DNR has the authority to shut down tribal netting if the species is in trouble and they clearly could restrict the sports fishers to catch and release or shut it down all together. Unfortunately, I doubt they have the balls to do it.

**All fish photographed in this article were returned to the rivers (alive) to continue their journies.

An Image of Dad

From the Blogmaster (or Blog Mistress, as the case may be)

This picture was sent by Mom (Dick's wife) to me last week. It's dated about 1957--when Dad was about 16 years old--posing with his swim buddies.

There are some things I've always known about Dad.

He's just a little bit off-center. He looks at life at a slightly different angle, which I think is healthy.

He's a showman. He's not afraid to be noticed. He's confident, but not cocky.

He may only stand 5'7", but his personality is over 6' tall.

I like to think I inherited some of this...and am able to pass it down to the next generation...no matter how weird it looks.