WHERE A GUIDE’S RESPONSIBILITIES END
AND YOURS BEGIN
Assuming that you choose a good guide, you can rely heavily on him/her for selecting prime viewing sites, helping you have a wonderful viewing experience, and minimizing your risk of ever being hurt by a bear. But, no guide is omnipotent. Even the best guide can’t control everything that you or the bears might do which could provoke or avoid aggression. In the final analysis, the person with greatest control of what happens to you, may be you. To minimize risks of both unwanted encounters, and injury during any encounter, you’ll need to shoulder some of the responsibility. You’ll need to do your part even while with your guide. And, you should be prepared in case you become separated from your guide at least temporarily, or if the guide is somehow injured or incapacitated. At the very least, you should be prepared to use the basic techniques taught in the book Bear Viewing in Alaska.
To begin learning more advanced techniques, read Bear Aggression 
and the Alaska Magnum Bear Safety Manual 
. Then, to master those techniques, get real world practice. This is best done with coaching by a bear expert skilled at teaching people how to deal with encounters.
and the Alaska Magnum Bear Safety Manual . Then, to master those techniques, get real world practice. This is best done with coaching by a bear expert skilled at teaching people how to deal with encounters.YOUR GUIDE’S ATTITUDE
When deciding which guide to hire, you might want to consider each candidate’s attitude towards bears, as well as towards wildlife and ecosystem conservation.
People fascinated with bears generally seek peaceful relations with the animals, taking care not to provoke aggression or to disturb the animals. When an animal is upset, these people wonder what they did wrong, or at least what they can do to rectify the matter and set the animal at ease.
Unfortunately, a few–so called bunny- or bear huggers–are too trusting or too timid around bears, perhaps because they lack the courage or determination to maintain the respect of bears towards people. Responding to offensive aggression with timidity may just invite the animal to escalate.
Or, if the people have courage and determination, they may go overboard in trying to dominate bears, of trying to assume alpha rank, rather than merely teaching bears to ignore them – a mistake that Tim Treadwell made regularly, and which may have contributed to his death and his fiance’s.
Even more extreme are guides who’d just as soon bully any bear they meet – or better yet, “shoot first and ask questions later.” This is the kind of guide who’s less interested in bears than in making money off bears. I know several guys like that who love guiding hunters and fishermen, with whom they empathize, but who wouldn’t guide viewers if they didn’t want the cash. As one of those guides put it: “Hunters and fishermen drink beer; we get loud and stink. Viewers drink wine, hug bunnies, and smell nice.”
If you could be labeled as a “Greenie,” and especially if you like live wolves and other predators, or if you oppose trophy hunting, why chose a guide who isn’t sympatico. Philosophical differences can spoil even the best viewing opportunity. If this could be a problem, ask prospective guides whether they guide bear hunters before asking whether they guide bear viewers. Or check the web to learn about the full range of their services.
Cooper grazing between bouts of scavenging coho salmon carcasses.
(c) 2005 S. Stringham
