Yellowstone Standoff. Scott Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ lowered his voice. “But the attack of the Territory Team had elements that weren’t so common. Quite uncommon, in fact.”

      Chuck leaned forward. “Such as?”

      “There isn’t anything that can be put in writing. But there is enough circumstantial evidence to raise doubts. The distance to the attack, for one thing. You watched the video; you saw how far the bear ran when it charged—all the way across the meadow. Generally, grizzly attacks involve bears that have been surprised in close quarters, in deep brush or dense forest. They lash out defensively, then retreat. In the case of the Territory Team, the logical assumption is that the grizzly was defending its food source—the carcass it had commandeered from the wolves. That much fits. But the distance it charged was entirely out of the ordinary.”

      Lex rested his forearms on the edge of the table. “Then there’s the fact that the bear somehow overcame the team members’ pepper spray. Was the grizzly immune to it? That’s a scary thought. But without video evidence, all we have is conjecture.”

      He let a beat pass. “The attack resulted in multiple fatalities, lending even more weight to the theory that it was a predatory attack as opposed to defensive. That, again, is highly unusual, and raises any number of questions about the bear itself, as well as how park scientists should conduct themselves in the backcountry until those questions are answered.” Lex’s face hardened. “All of that explains why we kept the science teams out of the backcountry last year, and why this year, still with no answers, they’re lucky to be going into the backcountry at all. The universities and foundations that fund research in the park have been all over me, wanting me to let their people head off into the woods on their own again. Even so, the decision to allow the teams to head to Turret Cabin as a group is a significant compromise.”

      Chuck gripped the edge of the table with both hands. Lex’s response several months ago to his request to have Janelle and the girls join him at Turret Cabin had been unreservedly affirmative. “Yet you are sending a group of scientists into the backcountry this summer. And you okayed my family going in with me, too.”

      “The key word is ‘group.’ Essentially, we’re forming a small city at Turret. Everyone will go out from there to conduct their research in teams of three or more, just as we recommend to anyone headed away from populated areas of the park. The idea is that they’ll be just as safe as if they were based here at Canyon for the summer, or at Lake or Old Faithful.”

      “Just as safe,” Chuck repeated warily.

      “Look,” Lex said, turning his palms up. “I know you’ve worked contracts over the years at lots of national parks across the West. But I also know this is the first time you’ve ever worked at Yellowstone. You have to understand, Yellowstone National Park is different from every other park in the country—in the world, for that matter—in the way it mixes huge numbers of people with predatory animals. That’s something we deal with every single day. Yellowstone is like the Serengeti: predators prowl here. They hunt, they kill, they eat. It’s the real deal.”

      Chuck inclined his head in agreement. “Sure. Along with the geysers, that’s what draws the crowds.”

      “But unlike the Serengeti,” Lex continued, “Yellowstone’s predators do what they do in the midst of more than three million human visitors each summer, with those numbers steadily increasing year after year.” He shrugged. “We can’t exactly lock the people—the public—out of their national park. They own it, after all. But the fact is, we’re seeing mounting evidence that some of Yellowstone’s animals are changing their behavior based on the growing number of human visitors to the park. There’s the steady rise of bison attacks from too many people posing next to them for selfies. Plus, there’s the escalating habituation of elk, which are growing increasingly comfortable even in the busiest places in Yellowstone—wandering across parking lots at Old Faithful, giving birth outside the front door of the Mammoth Hot Springs Post Office, tearing up the flower beds in the Lake Yellowstone Hotel courtyard.”

      “Those are grazing animals you’re talking about.”

      “Not entirely. There’s the behavior of gray wolves to consider, too. Before their extermination in the early 1900s, the last wolves in the park had learned to be extremely secretive—to stay out of sight, deep in the wilderness—in order to survive. Since their reintroduction, though, the wolves have made themselves comfortable everywhere within the park boundaries. Yes, they’re in the backcountry. But they’re equally comfortable in the front country, too, denning within sight of Northeast Entrance Road in Lamar Valley, taking down prey right alongside Grand Loop Road, a mile from Old Faithful Geyser with its tens of thousands of daily visitors. The wolves are doing so well that there’s even talk they might be challenging grizzlies for supremacy at the top of the park’s food chain.”

      “And now,” Chuck said, “you’re telling me you think the grizzly attack two years ago represented some new level of habituation by grizzlies as well.”

      Lex looked to his right and left. Assured no one was listening, he lowered his voice even more. “I’m saying the attack may have represented that. The question we want to answer is whether this particular grizzly might have become so habituated, so accustomed to the massive human presence in the park, that it came to see the Territory Team as prey.”

      Chuck sat up straight. “What?”

      Lex crooked a finger, beckoning Chuck closer to him. “What if the bear didn’t attack because it was alarmed? What if it knew exactly where it was, and waited for the humans who would be coming to retrieve their camera? And what if, when those humans showed up, the grizzly went on the attack not because it was surprised, but just the opposite: because it recognized the members of the Territory Team as easy takings?”

       5

      Chuck gaped at Lex from across the cafeteria table. “That’s one helluva leap—from increased habituation of animal species to the idea that the park’s grizzlies are actually beginning to hunt humans.”

      “Grizzly, not grizzlies. We’re talking about one bear here, whose extreme behavior presents lots of questions. That’s why we’re still working so hard to locate it—bringing in the Canine Team, doing everything we can to track it down.”

      “You’ve even given it a name.”

      “Notch,” Lex confirmed. He made air quotes with his fingers. “The ‘killer grizzly.’”

      “Doesn’t the park service frown upon that kind of anthropomorphism?”

      “We’ve made an exception in this case. Naming it, particularly by its defining feature, helps keep it in the public’s mind. Our hope is, if someone spots it, they’ll be more likely to recognize it and let us know.”

      “But the attack was two summers ago. No one’s seen the bear since.”

      “Grizzlies live for a quarter century or more.”

      One of the scientists Chuck recognized from last night approached carrying a tray of food. Lex waited until she was well past their table before he resumed speaking, again bending toward Chuck with his shoulders hunched.

      “I can tell you this much: Turret Patrol Cabin wasn’t chosen by chance. The entire Thorofare region around the cabin—the upper Yellowstone River valley and the Thorofare Creek drainage branching off to the southeast—is prime grizzly habitat.”

      “Everybody СКАЧАТЬ