On Monday, Park rangers shot and killed a 17-year-old sow grizzly near the Old Man Lake campground that had become unafraid of people and habitually entered campgrounds with her cubs, though she never bit or attacked anyone. On one hand, the Park managers were worried about the liability of a bear that they knew could possibly harm someone someday. On the other hand, there are critics, both in and out of the Park Service, that say the bear should have been given another chance. There is a method of hazing bears that does, to a degree, keep them out of trouble. The methods use dogs, "cracker" shells and other methods to scare bears away and teach them that campgrounds aren't places they should be. This bear was hazed using those methods in the summers of '04 and '05. She stayed out of trouble in 07 and 08, but once she had cubs, she went back to her campground ways.

The idea was to kill her and save her yearling cubs. They would be transferred to the Bronx Zoo in New York. But after she was shot, when the one cub was tranquilized, it died. The above photo is the surviving cub, awaiting transfer to New York today.

The effort has turned into a nightmare for the Park and saddened many folks. No one, even the people who made the decision to destroy the sow, are happy with it. Her story is a sad one and long one and we'll go into it in-depth in the next issue, as many facets are still developing.

For me, this taking this photo was simply gut wrenching. I hope I never have to take another like it. Grizzly bears don't belong in cages.