I don’t think I’ve ever read one of his books. I’m not sure why.

This was 5 years ago and a little over a km from my place. Where I take my dog for walks I often see cougar tracks as well as bear.

I used to live about 750m further up the mountain and there about 15 years ago there was a bunch of gas pipeline construction going on and as part of that there were some large aluminum storm conduits piled up in various places. There were a number of incidents right in town (Rossland) of cougars and bears having a nap in one. LOL

Needless to say I carry a large can of bear spray with me when I go out with my dog.

It is much funnier now than it was then.

In my opinion, it’s a GOOD thing. You should get scared, really scared, but in a safe way, where you are a willing participant. So you learn how to deal with fear when it’s safe and you’re not in real danger, so that when you’re really in danger you aren’t dealing with the novel distraction of terror and can get on with dealing with the actual problem.

Okay, well perhaps you wouldn’t be my first docent choice for that type of information.

I will say that the zoo trip is one of only a few elementary school trips my son remembers favorably.

Dean: I’ve run tour groups in South and East Africa, and the number one rule: No kids below a certain size. Because you know what happens if there is a kid in a vehicle out on a game drive? Well, the leopards see that, and they jump right out of the tree, and grab the kid by the head, and drag it off screaming, then they climb up in the tree with it and start to eat the kid while the kid is still alive…. !!!

A young one then? 🙂

When my older son was in first grade they had a field trip to a local zoo. I helped shepard a group of kids with another son’s mother. The zoo was raising a leopard cub, and the kids could look in a see it playing (it was with a young lab puppy, about the same size, to have a playmate).
As we were leaving that display there was a volunteer with the skeleton of a grown leopard He asked if any kids had questions. One boy asked if grown leopards would be fun to play with. This happened.

Zoo Aide: Come here son. Do you see these claws (holds out a paw) and these teeth (holds out the skull)? If the leopard saw you coming it would jump you (lunged at boy) and rip your throat and belly open with these claws and teeth, and then start eating you before you were dead so you’d know it.

He went on some more, but we finally managed to get the kids away from him — not before some of the boys in the group went “Cool!”, however — and we suggested to the next group’s parents “Don’t ask any questions.”

I have a very good feeling you’d be better with the explanation than that guy was.

There’s more to the story but we made a bear report at the ranger station and one questions was what we estimated the weight of the bear to be. We estimated 300 to 350 pounds.

A week later in the Idaho Falls paper they reported that the park service had removed nuisance bear from Cascade Canyon that weighed 98 pounds. That bear sure had a wonder diet between when we reported it and it was removed,