Where do People's Brains Go?

Where do people's brains go when they go on vacation. Most of my job at Brooks Camp is to tell people to move back away from the bears. I watched a plane of visitors get off the plane and with their cameras placed at the eyeballs they walked right up to a brown bear. Katmai's bear are habituated to humans but they still need their space and they are still wild animals. These people just wanted the great closeup.

At Katmai you are not allowed to eat anywhere in the park but at designated areas. It is very important that the bears do not get human food. Important to both the bears and the humans. When you arrive, you go through the bear safety course that explains no food. Yet just about everyday I catch someone with food and they always look at me and say "I didn't think candy bars were food. It is just an apple it can't hurt the bears. You mean I can't even drink my coke on the beach." I watched this couple spread a blanket on the ground and start placing food on the blanket to have a picnic with a bear coming towards them.

I saw a man spit at a bear. He was lucky that it was our oldest bear who has a hard time moving anymore because if he spat on Cinnamon a few years ago that guy would be a goner. I had a visitor who didn't want to leave any area to get a safe distance from the bear as he wanted to see if he could win a wrestling match with a 1200 pound, 12 foot tall, claw yielding bear. Like I said, where do there brains go.

I had a photographer try to get very close to a sow with cubs and the sow hop charged him. He was being told by the bear to move away. The photographer was
a little shaken by being charged by the bear then he turned and looked at me and said "I din't know the bears were wild here." His isn't the only comment that defies belief here. I had a lady complain that she had to walk to go see the bears if this were disneyland the bears would be where I want to see them. Last but not least a woman complained to me that after spending all the money to get up here she was disappointed because the bears were so scruffy looking and wanted to know why we didn't do something about that. They are WILD animals people.