Wilderness Reserves 



dinary bull or stallion, or even ram, and, in fact, 

 there is no danger from them at all unless they arc 

 encouraged to grow too familiar or are in some 

 way molested. Of course among the thousands 

 of tourists there is a percentage of thoughtless and 

 foolish people ; and when such people go out in the 

 afternoon to look at the bears feeding they occa- 

 sionally bring themselves into jeopardy by some 

 senseless act. The black bears and the cubs of the 

 bigger bears can readily be driven up trees, and 

 some of the tourists occasionally do this. Most of 

 the animals never think of resenting it; but now 

 and then one is run across which has its feelings 

 ruffled by the performance. In the summer of 

 1902 the result proved disastrous to a too inquisi- 

 tive tourist. He was traveling with his wife, and 

 at one of the hotels they went out toward the 

 garbage pile to see the bears feeding. The only 

 bear in sight was a large she, which, as it turned 

 out, was in a bad temper because another party of 

 tourists a few minutes before had been chasing her 

 cubs up a tree. The man left his wife and walked 

 toward the bear to see how close he could get. 

 When he was some distance off she charged him, 

 whereupon he bolted back toward his wife. The 

 bear overtook him, knocked him down and bit 

 him severely. But the man's wife, without hesita- 



47 



