426 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



frail humanity is. really remarkable in a wild, free-wandering bear ! 

 The black bear, who has tamed himself deserves all the encourage- 

 ment we can give.him as, well as our. friendship and protection. The 

 Park management is protecting the black bears against the tourist, 

 as they are really too friendly and confiding toward undisciplined, 

 thoughtless humans, who are sometimes tempted to tease and play 

 practical jokes on good-natured bears and thus irritate them to the 

 point of committing murder. , It should be home in, mind that bears 

 are wild animals of uncertain mood and can^not be. safely fed out 

 of hand by the visitor. To quote the emphatic . warning of Park 

 Naturalist Skinner : "LEAVE 'EM • ALONE !" : Some tourist is 

 sure to unwittingl^y tantalize some bear by displaying food to him 

 and keeping it just out of his reach. A savage attack by the bear 

 is often the dire result. 



Your own pet dog, when feeding, would probably not permit such 

 liberties; why should a wild bear? No zoological garden permits 

 visitors to feed or tease its animals, for the best of reasons. More- 

 over, it is their very wildness that gives the bears, their charm, and 

 nothing would be less desirable in a v»ilderness park than to domesti- 

 cate its wild denizens. The Park management has stationed rangers 

 at all the garbage dumps to see that this rule against tourists feeding 

 or annoying the bears is obeyed. 



The black bears deserve a thousandfold the protection and the 

 food that is given them, but they are still far less numerous than 

 they should be, and are to be seen with certainty at only a few 

 places along the loop highway. But, as indicated in our discussion 

 of the grizzly, only an enlarging of the Park, or thoroughgoing pro- 

 tection in the surrounding National Forests, will result in a perma- 

 nent increase in the number of bears. At Upper Geyser Basin, 

 the Lake, and the Grand Canyon, they frequent the hotel garbage 

 dumps (figs. 54, 55) together with the grizzlies. But at Camp 

 Roosevelt they may be observed and photographed at close range 

 during any hour of the day (fig. 60), and their droll antics and 

 fascinating ways are a continual delight to the onlooker. 



The black, brown and "cinnamon" bears — all merely color phases 

 of the same species — are remarkable tree climbers (figs. 61-63) 

 and the dense conifer forests are their ever-ready refuge. It is most 

 amusing- to watch a pair of cubs go scampering up a tall fir at a 

 quiet signal from the mother, or when thrown into a temporary 

 fright by some imaginary danger. Plate 25 represents a typical 

 family of black bears in their Yellowstone home. In the vicinity 

 of Camp Roosevelt their well-worn trails and the marks of their 



