Respecting nature and its risks
Published 5:29 pm Monday, July 13, 2015
Two recent events have raised the issue of the risks we take when we enter forests, wilderness and state and national parks.
The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently released public comments on a proposal to reintroduce grizzly bears into the North Cascades Ecosystem, a 2.6 million-acre swath of land spreading from I-90 north and extending into Canada. The bears once numbered in the thousands in the region, but only one confirmed sighting has been made of a grizzly in the last decade. About 20 are estimated to live within the ecosystem north of the U.S.-Canadian border.
Of about 2,900 public comments forwarded to the agencies, about 1,400 were supportive of the proposal. A smaller number of comments, 285, were critical of the plan, many citing the potential for increased risk to humans from bear attacks, reported a July 6 article by The Herald’s Amy Nile.
Also this month, a California woman was killed and five other visitors injured when chunks of ice from the Big Four ice caves near Verlot collapsed while they were inside the cave. While the danger of falling ice at the caves is constant, the threat has increased this summer as warmer-than-seasonal temperatures began melting the snow earlier this spring than is typical. A story in The Herald in early May warned of the danger even then.
And the threat is present even for those who observe the warnings not to enter the caves. In late July 2010, a large block of ice slid down the snowfield and struck Grace Tam, a 11-year-old visiting the ice caves with her family. The girl was sitting about 20 feet from the glacier when she was struck. She did not survive her injuries.
Whether it’s after a tragedy or before undertaking something with the potential to increase risk, threats to safety have to be considered, but that consideration has to weigh the actual risks — and not fears — against other considerations, including the value of access to nature and the environmental benefits of restoring wildlife populations.
Restoring grizzlies to the North Cascades could enhance the populations of other wildlife, a process known as trophic cascade, in which predators act as a control for their prey, enhancing survival for other species below them in the food web.
The U.S. Forest Service has temporarily closed access to Big Four following the loss of life there, but permanently closing off access to the ice caves, or dynamiting them each spring to reduce the hazard (an option considered and rejected in 1996), would limit the ability to appreciate what is one of the more accessible glaciers in the Northwest.
Grizzlies and ice caves are dangerous. The threat is real. But it’s a manageable threat. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Wyoming and Montana, which supports about 590 grizzly bears, had two fatal grizzly attacks in 2011, but Yellowstone’s last fatal attack prior to that was in 1984. Visitors in bear country can take a range of precautions, including traveling in groups and carrying bear spray. And the ice caves can be enjoyed from a safe distance, with visitors always on the alert.
Visitors to parks and forests face a far greater risk of injury and death from motor vehicle accidents on their way to and from the outdoors than they to do from anything else once they get out of their cars.
After the death of Grace Tam, her family placed a plaque near the Big Four glacier’s ice caves in her memory but also with a gracious request: “The Tam family wants you to be aware that this is a beautiful but always changing environment. They hope that you enjoy the ice caves and Big Four Mountain only from a distance.”
