Monday, October 31, 2016

Places




Photo by Corey Arnold @arni_coraldo Happy Halloween! Last winter, Wes @grizkid and I crawled into this absurdly deep and claustrophobic black bear den together near @brycecanyonnps The goal was to poke this 300+ pound bear with a tranquilizer dart attached to a 6 foot pole before it fully awoke from its groggy hibernation and change the batteries in its radio tracking collar. We were 70 feet deep into this narrow tunnel facing a bear that didn't immediately take to the tranquilizer and began crawling towards us as we scrambled backwards. Two more doses later, this bear basically sleep-walked out of the den and fell asleep against a tree nearby. After the swap, the bear was quickly placed back into the den to resume his winter hibernation. The tracking device confirmed that this bear recovered safely and was not harmed during our encounter. Wes is a masters student at BYU and his thesis research deals with how black bears are adjusting to the growing amount of human presence in the Bryce Canyon area, and how we can best condition bears to avoid campgrounds and other anthropomorphic features that might cause them to get into trouble. This kind of research is important in an areas like Bryce that see a lot of tourism as it benefits both bears and humans. He is one of the dozens of millennials I photographed who shared with me their experience of America's National Parks over the past year for @natgeo Click on the link in my personal profile @arni_coraldo to read the full cover story in Nat Geo Magazine: Can the Selfie Generation Unplug and Get Into Parks? #wildernextgen #blackbear #natgeo #nationalparks #findyourpark #npmillennials #brycecanyon #wildlife #humananimals #photooftheday #instagood #wild #nature #picoftheday #science #adventure #halloween #bear #scary #fear #utah
A photo posted by National Geographic (@natgeo) on