A grizzly thank you

I'm sure you all have a lot to be thankful for this year. I'm especially thankful that I didn't become Thanksgiving dinner.

I had three close encounters of the grizzly kind this summer and two had the potential to go badly. None of them, looking back at it, even came close, even though I could have thrown a rock not very hard and hit two of the bears.

One of them walked right at me without looking up until the last 40 feet or so, when he simply decided to go into the trees rather than eat me for lunch.

It is, however, the sort of thing that will give a start. Make you think about your future.

My encounters aside, it does make you wonder why there aren't more grizzlies eating humans out there, particularly in Glacier National Park, where 2 million people or so visit every year.

Let's just say, for the sake of arguing and round figures, that there are 400 grizzlies in the Park.

And let's just say that a fraction - 50,000 people - ever go on a hike. That's still 125 hikers per bear.

So you'd think that more bears would eat more people. But it doesn't happen that often. In fact, it rarely happens at all. There have only been 10 documented cases of people being eaten by bears in the Park in the past 92 years or so. Sure, there's quite a few more bitings and mauling and charges, but even those cases are fairly rare.

I posed the question to Park biologist John Waller, who has spent years studying bears and other critters with sharp teeth.

John always has an interesting perspective on things. I once asked him, why, if Sullivan Meadow in the Park was a wolf denning site, were there so many deer living there as well?

He likened it to living in a nice neighborhood with the odd criminal. You don't pack up and move your things just because there's a murder once in awhile. In short, Sullivan Meadow is good deer habitat that happens to also harbor wolves. Habitat is king.

Grizzlies and humans have been living together for thousands of years. Sharing the same mountains. Sharing the same habitat, Waller notes.

He also notes that in the general scheme of things, Grizzlies also aren't that great a predator. They're designed more to dig up stuff than to sneak around and attack something.

But if a grizzly kills and eats a human, there is another factor that will likely make that person its last meal. And that factor, Waller notes, is revenge. People are very good at taking revenge on a bear that has killed and eaten one of their own.

Bears that live near people seem to have learned this - at least most of them have.

I think Waller is right. Still, I will most certainly keep carrying my bear spray. And I will most certainly be always and genuinely scared when I have a too close encounter with a bear.

But I'll also know that the odds are still on my side. And hopefully, a little history, as well.

Last week we had a woman approach us to do a story on organ transplants, with her case putting a human face on the issue.

The woman has lung disease and one of the questions we asked her was whether or not she smoked. The woman was offended by the question and refused to answer it. She said it didn't matter whether she smoked.

But the job of a reporter is to ask questions, namely who, what, why, when and how. It's the basics of reporting. When someone doesn't want to, or refuses to answer questions, particularly in a medical piece, well, quite frankly, the relationship between a writer and the subject gets strained very quickly.

We decided not to go forward with the story - at least not with this woman's case as an example for why people need transplants and why people should become organ donors.

I am a card carrying organ donor. It says it right on my driver's license in big green letters. Obviously, I'll get no say where my organs, if they're any good when I die, will go. But while I'm alive and still writing, I will certainly voice my view that I don't think my organs should go to someone who has made poor life choices.

In short, I hope my lungs don't go to smoker. I hope my liver doesn't go to an alcoholic or a drug abuser. There are far too many people - children in particular - with legitimate health problems. I believe to place smokers and alcoholics even on the list for transplants is unconscionable.

Still it happens enough.

Singer David Crosby got a liver transplant, even though at least part of the reason why his liver failed was drug abuse.

Ditto for Micky Mantle, who was an alcoholic.

Then there's George Best.

He was a British football star, alcoholic. He got a liver transplant and continues to drink, according to the British Broadcasting Co. and other print reports.

This is infuriating. But it won't stop me from being a donor.

I'm banking on the overall good of humanity.

Especially on this day - a day aptly titled Thanksgiving.

Chris Peterson is the editor and a columnist with the Hungry Horse News.