Grand Marais was thrilled to be voted “Coolest Small Town,” but the tragic episode with the baby bear presented a different take on the whole tourist thing.
For the better part of the summer, the town’s streets have been choked with people of every description. Why, I wonder. Sure, I know the strengths and charms of Grand Marais, but apparently our visitors don’t have a clue about us. For instance, they don’t realize we live alongside a wide variety of wildlife, and we usually do so without incident. By contrast, it seems the majority of our visitors are sadly out of touch with the natural world. We have only to see people get out of their cars and walk up to a moose for a photo op to realize they have been lured by movies and TV into the false impression that Mother Nature is consistently benign and that wild animals want nothing more than to play with us.
A crowd of clueless gawkers gathered last week to watch someone’s woefully uninformed (and apparently unsupervised) children harass a bear cub to its death. It makes me wonder if they believed the Chamber of Commerce had arranged a Disney Animatronics display for their entertainment.
And where was the DNR? Well, nowhere actually. Certainly not helping the police with crowd control or trying to capture/herd the bear. “Just let it alone” is pretty much the stock DNR answer to any wildlife alarm. Or “we don’t have tranquilizer darts” is another good one. Why the heck not? Claiming that a dose might prove lethal to a cub is illogical. There must be varying doses, including something for a small, terrified bear. Is it their job to just settle back in their chairs? The “Do Nothing Rangers” is my new name for them.
Kudos to the police for doing their best using what they had at hand, a blanket. At least they tried. A lasso might prove a handy future tool for them. Or, more probably, they should be the ones to have the tranquilizer dart gun.
In closing, I’d like to invite the gawkers and the chasers who contributed to the death of the little black bear back to Grand Marais in another month. The wolves come down from the hills then. If nothing else, it should make for a level playing field.
Pam Dorris
Grand Marais
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