Why?
The local paper, Deseret Morning News reported today that the black bear that killed an 11-year old boy yesterday was the “first black bear-related death recorded in Utah.” The bear was described as a “Level Three” bear, one that has displayed aggressive behavior toward humans, has little fear of humans, or has attempted to kill domestic pets.” Officials say that the minimal amount of food in the campsite appeared to have nothing to do with the bear attack. Why then?
There may never be a answer to that question. That’s what’s so disturbing.
I can’t count the nights my family and I have slept in tents. This tragedy makes me want to avoid ever doing it again, although I most likely won’t. I used to laugh at all the campgrounds littered with campers and RVs, thinking that they weren’t really camping. Sometimes we were the only tent. Now it seems the ones who slept inside were the smart ones.
Every summer we vacation at a cabin near Yellowstone National Park 
where grizzlies and black bears are plentiful. There is a black bear skin hanging on the wall in the main room. My grandfather shot it years ago when it was scavenging around the cabin, back when it wasn’t illegal to shoot bears.
When we’d go huckleberry picking in the forest, we’d take pails with “bear bells” dangling from the sides to 
warn them away. As I child I secretly hoped I’d never run into one like little Sal did in Blueberries for Sal. I never did, but I always wondered what was behind the next grouping of lodgepole pines. Maybe a mother gizzly and her cub?
I am lost in these thoughts today.
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