Letter from Clay Warren
Wildlife – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Ordinarilly I wouldn’t a paid a bit o’ heed to any bear story told by a cop. However, as soon as ah see’d thet the government was doin’ hits best to discredit not one, but two actual qualified observers, ah knew in an instant what was goin’ on here: we’re talking Coverup! Ah’m jist suprised thet them two hunters wasn’t accused o’ mistaken a sow and two half growed cubs at 60 yards fer a weather balloon. Ah mean two guys with thet kind o’ combined experience around bears? Why hell, if they can’t tell the difference between a black and a grizz, they’d already be in jail for poachin’ an thet’s a fact.
Now ah personally ain’t seen grizz since my chopper pilot and I chased a boar, a sow and two cubs outta ma camp on the Colville River in the Alaskan Arctic in the summer o’ 1980. Thet experince alone would explain why a wildlife expert would make such a statement as “that almost certainly required that a male grizzly be nearby.” The reason thet boar crossed the river was ’cause that sow chased him thet way after beating him about the head and shoulders a few times. When a sow still has cubs with her, she has mayhem in mind, not romance. That’s what they do to keep the cubs from bein’ et by the boar. Walt Disney or not, grizz family life ain’t the goldurn Brady Bunch fer cryn’ out loud. Or he coudda jist been misquoted, ‘cept ah doubt that on account o’ his next statment.
Ah agree that hit might be unlikely thet a female would migrate 300 miles all in one jump, to take up residence away from Wyoming. But hell, if ah lived up there, I’d leave too, even if hit was only in small bits. Might even stop off in North Park for a snack of beef, which a former defacto brother-in-law reckons has happened at least every couple o’ years since he’s been in the cow business there. Of course he’s been tole officially thet thet can’t happen because everybody knows there ain’t no grizz in Colorado anywhere, kind o’ like the reverse of global warming. On the other hand ah kin see where this “expert” is safe and comfy in the center o’ his 300 mile radius universe, known’ xactly where each and every bear ever born is located at the instant.
All that obstification leaves one lookin’ fer a motive, and hit is jist as plain as day. The Forest Service, Wildlife Agencies and the Environmental Movement in general, has been trying for 40 years to get the goldang public outta the woods so’s there’ll be room fer grizz, wolves, pine beetles, porkie pines an’ such. Plus if they git their way, they personally won’t have to share no Public Lands with the hoi poi. So if a confirmed grizz sighting was to be made in a relatively accessable area, why the whole International Grizzly Bear Spotting Community would decend upon the place, an probably bring members o’ the general public with them, thereby undoing years of exclusion work.
Then we have the matter of the domesticated grasshoppers swarming all over the place. Why some fool is likely to come along an write a book about thet, probably call it “Mysterious Meadow Muffins” or “Attack of the Swarming Arachnids” er some such. An thet would bring a whole bunch of etimologists, or worse a nuther pack o’ tourists of a different stripe. I’m suprised thet no mention was made by any official thet them bars couldn’t a been feeding on crickets, cause hit is a well known fact that they spit out the wing tips and lower legs, and no such offal was seen by the investigators, conveniently forgettin’ thet whole gut piles from an elk will disappear overnight.
An, fer another thing, hit was African lions, and tigers, thet the late John Norris kept caged, ‘cept when he turned one loose on an employee, which is a currently frowned upon management technique.
Yere’s ’til all the snow turns into ice.
Clay Warren
Pseudonymous in Poncha
