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Louisa Willcox
- Dec 31, 2015
Without A Safety Net
In Yellowstone, the New Year may ring in a grizzly bear hunt for the first time in 40 years. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has announced the release in January of a new proposal to remove endangered species protections for Yellowstone’s grizzly bears. Removal of protections is known as “delisting.” Whether or not delisting is appropriate depends in part on the strength and responsiveness of systems to manage grizzly bears after federal protections are stripped. With
Louisa Willcox
- Dec 24, 2015
Heavenly Bears, Grizzly Deaths
Stars and the heavens capture our imagination this season. No constellation is more famous than the Big Dipper, which is also known as Ursa Major, the Great Bear. In French, Grande Ourse. Italian, Ursa Maggiore. German, Grosse Bar. Ursa Major and its neighbor Ursa Minor, the Lesser or Little Bear, are the first two constellations listed in the earliest star catalogues. Ancient peoples saw bears in these constellations, creating stories that varied widely throughout the North
David Mattson
- Dec 17, 2015
Grizzly Sardine Can Blues
We can’t support any more bears. We’ve got bears coming out of our ears. We’ve reached carrying capacity. Such is the purported state of grizzly bears in Yellowstone. Sound familiar? It should. For those of you who have been paying attention to the rhetoric voiced by agency spokespeople during the last few years, you will have heard the refrain about too many bears in too little space over and over again. In fact, this claim undergirds much of the argument made by the US Fish
Louisa Willcox
- Dec 10, 2015
The Zombie March
Zombies have been on my mind lately. No, I have not been seeing too many horror films. I just have been noticing lately how easy it is for all of us to dissociate and become numb to the pain and even the joy of the world in mindless thrall to urges that hurt not only ourselves but others as well. Not uncommonly, these pitiless urges seem to arise not only from our own dark places, but also from the culture and institutions that surround us.Consider the behaviors of officials
Louisa Willcox
- Dec 3, 2015
Drawing the Line for Bears
The beloved Teddy Bear is rooted in surprising controversy. In 1906, the life of the model for the first Teddy Bear was spared by President Theodore Roosevelt. The descendants of the president’s namesake survive mostly in the swamps and hardwood forests of Louisiana and Mississippi. But today they are threatened and, like other bears, in need of a presidential pardon. The story of the doll goes like this. President Roosevelt refused to kill a black bear cub whose mom had been
