Questions Park bear policy

What is the job of a Glacier National Park ranger? Is it to help provide visitors with a memorable vacation experience?

Is it to be gracious and courteous to all who visit?

Or is it to use their loud speaker a half-mile away from a bear jam, screaming at the visitors to get back in their cars? One ranger seems to enjoy turning the Many Glacier area from a quiet, majestic place, into an obnoxious loud carnival atmosphere.

Is their job to fill their shot gun with cracker shells and blast a grizzly sleeping on the shore of Lake Sherburne after first throwing a rock at the grizzly? When a ranger throws a rock at a bear, that’s such a poor example for the park visitors to witness. There were dozens of visitors standing on the road 200 yards away watching in disbelief.

Is it to blast cracker shells at most bears that get within photographic range from the road, to prevent those visitors from getting the unforgettable experience of watching a bear?

Is their job to ask a visitor sitting at the dam on the Many Glacier road why he’s sitting there and is he a terrorist? Is that what their job is?

Some rangers seem to lose sight of the fact that thousands of people work very hard all year long in order to enjoy their vacations. For many people, saving enough money to come to Glacier is a big deal for them.

And most of these people want to see bears, especially grizzlies.

If these rangers don’t like dealing with people, should the park find those who do enjoy dealing with visitors and wildlife in a kind manner?

For some visitors this is a once a year experience, and for others only once in a lifetime. A few years ago I was standing on the porch of the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn looking back at the mountain and I showed a bear to a man from another country.

He said to me, “I’m 80 years old, I’ve never seen a bear until now and I am so happy.”

Blasting cracker shells from a shotgun at a sleeping grizzly and using a loud speaker to scream at visitors is not what people expect in their beloved national park.

I know it’s hard dealing with the public, but the rangers knew this when they took the job.

Glacier should be a quiet, serene place, not a carnival. Blasting cracker shells from a shotgun at any bear that gets within view of the road, isn’t fair to park visitors.

People don’t come to the east side of Glacier to see the purple knapweed, they come to see bears.

Charlotte Heldstab

Whitefish