{"id":24798,"date":"2017-04-07T17:04:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-08T00:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/life-with-bears\/"},"modified":"2017-04-07T17:04:18","modified_gmt":"2017-04-08T00:04:18","slug":"life-with-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/life-with-bears\/","title":{"rendered":"Life with Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1976, when Larry Aumiller was dropped off by floatplane for his first season to oversee the McNeil River Bear Sanctuary, he had little inkling that the place and its wildlife would become an integral part of his life. Leaving gun and gear in an inflatable raft on the beach, he walked up to open the cabin that unbeknownst to him at the time would become his home for 30 seasons. Suddenly, something didn\u2019t seem right. He looked back to see a young bear jumping on his raft like it was a trampoline, the loaded gun bouncing up and down.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of many stories author Jeff Fair, a freelance writer and independent wildlife biologist, relates in a recently published book celebrating Larry Aumiller\u2019s legacy. Fair tells a different sort of bear story than we\u2019re used to hearing \u2014 that of a man who lived amongst, and helped thousands of people experience, a dense concentration of wild brown bears for 30 years without a single individual, human or bear, being hurt by the other.<\/p>\n

Douglas H. Chadwick, a wildlife biologist and author, wrote in the foreword: \u201cAumiller would be too modest to tell you himself, so I\u2019ll say it for him here: he broke through the longstanding walls of myths and misconceptions to reach a new level of understanding these creatures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book also offers the history of McNeil River and its brown bear viewing. Located around 250 miles southwest as the crow flies of Anchorage, the river drains from the mountains of the Aleutian Range into Cook Inlet. Even if you\u2019ve never heard of the sanctuary, you\u2019ve probably seen photos of giant male bears fishing at McNeil Falls. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says that as many as 74 bears have been viewed at the same time.<\/p>\n

From June 7 to Aug. 25, 10 visitors, drawn from a lottery, are allowed to visit the McNeil sanctuary each day. Fair writes that most spend four days and return to civilization changed for the better. I\u2019ve known three folks that visited McNeil \u2014 two were seasoned Pack Creek rangers \u2014 and all said it was a special experience well worth the time and money. For wildlife-viewing junkies, McNeil River is a mecca. Much of the models other established bear viewing areas like Pack Creek and Brooks Falls use were taken from the program Aumiller developed.<\/p>\n

Fair writes that first season at McNeil, however, Aumiller had little idea what to expect from bears. He also had no manual on how to manage people and bears. Fair quotes Aumiller as saying, \u201cNot only did we not know what to do, we didn\u2019t know what not to do.\u201d Fair goes on to say, \u201cwhen he (Aumiller) started at McNeil, he was saddled with that popular negative romance of fright \u2014 the modern human mythology about the dangerous, fearsome, ferocious and unpredictably hot-tempered grizzly bear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fair shows how during the four months that season, spent in close quarters with bears every day, Larry\u2019s understanding quickly deepened and grew. Bears weren\u2019t demon monsters but neither were they teddy bears. The potential for harm was always present but by acting in a respectful, routine and mindful manner it was possible to peacefully coexist.<\/p>\n

Many people have a hard time believing it\u2019s possible to be near brown bears without substantial risk. Until Aumiller the canon of bear literature mostly dealt with stories \u2014 many of which were grossly exaggerated or misrepresented \u2014 of hunters killing bears and ferocious bears stalking and mauling people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Wild Trust\u201d shows how Aumiller gently bucked that dominant paradigm and offered a perspective of restraint and something akin to trust in our relationship with brown bears. It\u2019s not magic. As Fair relates, Aumiller said this of how he kept bears and people safe at McNeil: \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty straightforward deal where through experience they (bears) learn a certain thing. It doesn\u2019t mean they like you or that there\u2019s any spiritual connection or whatever. It just means they\u2019ve learned you are no threat \u2014 it\u2019s safe to ignore you. I call it neutral habituation, in the sense that there\u2019s no reason for them to seek us (no food available), no reason for them to be particularly wary, no reason for them to flee when they see us. Therefore neutral.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Wild Trust\u201d is both simple and profound. Combined with Larry Aumiller\u2019s amazing photos of brown bears, life and landscapes of McNeil River, this book is for wildlife lovers and anyone interested in or afraid of bears.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 Bjorn Dihle is a Juneau writer. His first book, \u201cHaunted Inside Passage,\u201d is now available most places books are sold. Follow him at www.facebook.com\/BjornDihleauthor.<\/b><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1976, when Larry Aumiller was dropped off by floatplane for his first season to oversee the McNeil River Bear Sanctuary, he had little inkling that the place and its wildlife would become an integral part of his life. Leaving gun and gear in an inflatable raft on the beach, he walked up to open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":24799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[149],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-outdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24798"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}