Its been one of the damndest kinds of human behavior towitnessand witness it I have for nearly five full yearsas Mountain Journalbuilt its large and engaged audience on Facebook.

Eyebrow raising, too, is how the tenor of discourse in thedigital town squarethe modern version of spectators shouting from cheap seatsin the Roman Coliseum changes abruptly if the injured person dies.

It's happened with a number of fatal grizzly bear maulings.

Rest assured the same kind of vile fulmination flows frompeople who wish ill things to happen to environmentalistsespecially todefenders of grizzlies and wolvesas it does with animal rights activists saying all hunters ought to be hunted. To share almost any story on social media is to affirm that it's often mighty hard to foster a civil discussion.

On the morning of Memorial Day 2022, a young woman from Ohio,25 years old, in the early prime of her life, was gored by a bison as shestrolled along a boardwalk in Black Sand Basin in Yellowstone National Park. Accordingto the press release offered by Yellowstone officials, she was tossed 10 feetin the air. She was evacuated and her condition remains unknown.

Initially, when news first broke of the encounter, she was roundly ridiculed for venturing too close to thelarge post-Pleistocene icon of Americas oldest national park. If you want toget a taste of the flavor of comments, go to Mountain Journals Facebookpage now and read them for yourself.

Before one judges, consider that the impetuous reactions frommost were not likelyif we are giving them the benefit of the doubtintended tobe cruel. Often it is instead a cathartic acknowledgment that the space of wildanimals needs to be respected. Rallying on behalf of wildliferecognizing animalsentience and not treating species other than ourselves merely as harvestable natural resources or propcuriositiesis actually only a fairly recent advancement in the thinking of Homo sapiens.

In its press release,Yellowstone emphasized a fact that is included in the pamphlets and fliersgiven to visitors as they pass through the park gates. Wildlife in Yellowstoneare wild and can be dangerous when approached, the press release reminded, andit repeated the legal spatial mandates that exist in both Yellowstone and GrandTeton national parks: visitors are required to maintain at least a 25-yard(75-foot) distance between themselves and bison, elk, bighorn sheep, deer,moose and coyotes and at least 100 yards (300 feet) from bears and wolves.

Indeed, neither Yellowstone, nor Grand Teton nor the otherpublic wildlands in Greater Yellowstone are Disneyland. And this is precisely whyGreater Yellowstone and its unparalleled array of large mammal inhabitants stands apart.

But here, lets reflect on what that means. It means theanimals are not tame. It means they are self-willed and mostly uncontrolled. It means they are larger than people. Asa tenet of personal responsibility, it means that in order to minimize thepossibility of us getting injured or injuring them we are required to arm ourselves not with gunsbut solid information. It means that we increase our ecological literacy, whichis to say becoming aware of the natural history of other beings that are notrobots or creations of artificial intelligence or virtual reality.

This Yellowstone tourist, who moved too close to a mother grizzly and cubs, darts away after the adult bear made a bluff charge. The 25-year-old visitor from Carol Stream, Illinois, was banned from Yellowstone and required to pay more than $2,000 in fines. Photo courtesy Yellowstone Facebook page/Darcie Addington

Wild lives have the potential to wipe smugness from the faceof any arrogant, self-absorbed person who does not check their own ego at thedoor. Sometimes, even the reverent,respectful and unprepared are reminded of that with devastating consequences.

The point is not to mock others when it happens but rather morefully appreciate that such wildness still exists in the 21stcenturyeven after decades of litigious, opportunistic lawyers seeking toblame, sue and profit on misadventure, and frightened government agencies being forced to buffthe edges off of danger. In essence, thetendency has been to eviscerateor make antiseptic the very things that makewild places wild and which summon us closer with hearts in full palpitation.

Obviously, sincere sympathies are offered to the humans whoget hurt or killed. They are somebodys belovedsons and daughters, moms, dads and good personal friends. They did not come toYellowstone and Grand Teton with any notion of being mauled or gored. Enthusiastic, they made the trekbecause the allure of wild nature matters to them and, in today's world, the scarcity of such places in the Anthropocene mean most humans are out of their element.

Whats also essential to understand is that such negativeencounters are actually exceedingly rare; that maintaining awesome wildness isnot so much a matter of wildlife management but human management, and wehumans often create trouble for both wildlife and those in uniform whovirtuously look after them.

So, what about bisonhow dangerous are they? While most visitorworry is directed toward bears, bison are actually the most dangerous animal inYellowstone.

That number has risen since the analysis was made. But the researchers, when it was written, also cited the advent of a newphenomenon that, in some ways, has undermined the great educational outreachefforts made by the national parks. The popularity of smart phone photographywith its limited zoom capacity and social media sharing of selfies mightexplain why visitors disregard park regulations and approach wildlife moreclosely than when traditional camera technology was used.

Yes, revolutionaryhand-held technology that alters human behavior has actually resulted in morepeople abandoning common sense, turning their backs to wildlife which are closeby, and then posing for a selfie to get the animal in the frame.

Rangers in Yellowstone and Grand Teton have theirhands full trying to manage wildlife jams along the park highways. In JacksonHole, public excitement surrounding grizzlies, namely mother bear 399, has putthe Grand Teton Park wildlife brigade into a tough spot trying to prevent people from doingextraordinarily dumb things in their zeal to see bears and capture theexperience on camera.

However, the authors also note: Despite thesuccess of the 1970 bear management program in reducing the number ofbear-inflicted human injuries in the park, an average of 1 bear-inflicted humaninjury/year still occurs. These injuries most often involve surprise encountersbetween backcountry hikers and female grizzly bears with young. It will bedifficult to reduce the frequency of this type of injury, especially if bothbackcountry recreational activity and the grizzly bear population in YellowstoneNational Park continue to increase. Public education programs informing hikershow to avoid surprise encounters and how to react to encounters and attacksonce they occur may be the most useful tool in further decreasing the numberand severity of bear-inflicted human injuries in the park.

In 2021, a 25-year-old woman from Carol Stream, Illinois, unwittingly made national news after she was captured on video remaining too close to a Yellowstone grizzly mother with cubs and was bluff charged by the adult bear. Pleading guilty to a number of charges, Samantha Dehring spent four days in jail, was banned from Yellowstone for a year and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and make a $1,000 community service contribution to the Yellowstone Forever Wildlife Protection Fund,

Wildlife in Yellowstone National Park are, indeed, wild. The park is not a zoo where animals can be viewed within the safety of a fenced enclosure. They roam freely in their natural habitat and when threatened will react accordingly, statedActing US Attorney Bob Murray in a news release issued by Yellowstone. Approaching a sow grizzly with cubs is absolutely foolish. Here, pure luck is why Dehring is a criminal defendant and not a mauled tourist.

But to show how rare such an encounter is, the park put it inperspective. Chances of being attacked by a grizzly in developed areas,roadsides, and boardwalks in Yellowstone: 1 in 59.5 million visits; chanceswhile in a roadside campground; 1 in 26.6 million overnight stays; chanceswhile camped in the backcountry: 1 in 1.7 million overnight stays; chances while hiking in the backcountry: 1 in232,613 person travel days. Put altogether, the chances of having a grizzlyencounter overall: 1 in 2.7 million visits.

The irony of potential peril is that it possesses the potential of making us feel more alive. Lucky are we to still have nature preserves we enter at our own risk. For those who come into harm's way, let us resist the temptation to debase ourselves by being unkind. Sometimes when things happen in Yellowstone, the could happen to any of us.

NOTE: Todd Wilkinson's longstanding column, "The New West," appears every Wednesday and Monday at Mountain Journal.

Read more:
When Yellowstone Wildlife Injures Humans, We Need To Keep Own Behavior In Check - Mountain Journal