Posted by LR on August 15, 2003 at 09:50:30:
LR Datelines: August 15 2003
By LR
Datelines post an occasional collection of amusing
news items from various sources.
Bare Bear-food Backfires in Yellowstone
(Montana Tourism Times, July 24)
Feeding nude women to Yellowstone’s bears has produced
exactly the result park rangers have warned against
for months: five-hundred-pound predators aggressively
pursuing their tasty new prey.
The babe-feeding craze began three seasons ago, when
an elderly couple from South Dakota slathered their
pet blonde with honey and shoved her off the road
toward a pair of grizzlies. After licking the honey
from the girl’s flesh, the bears took a few bites and
found babe-meat very much to their liking.
Tourist videos of the naked girl being devoured soon
appeared on national news, and by the end of summer
park rangers were dealing with several girl-feedings a
day. Anyone caught feeding bears faces a
five-hundred-dollar fine, but watching a live babe
munched by carnivores was too much fun to pass up.
“We brought along this pretty Asian girl specifically
for the bears,” one tourist told the Boise Times. “A
black mama bear and two cubs really tore into her, and
it was the high point of our trip.”
The rangers soon faced cleanup issues, as girl-scraps
attracted smaller predators to the roadside.
“The last week in August you could drive along some
sections and find smooth limbs and pretty little heads
all over the road,” says Chief Park Ranger Ted
Corielli. “Foxes, coyotes, badgers, raccoons, weasels
- all kinds of smaller animals were going after the
carrion. Not to mention flies, of course. Every day
we were picking up a truckload of girl-parts and
washing off gallons of blood.”
After two seasons of snacking on naked girls, the
carnivores stopped waiting for offered babes and
started going after them. This summer attacks have
become common. Camping areas, rest stops and vehicles
are regularly invaded by rampaging bears in search of
appetizing flesh.
Jane and Rick Lofton of Oakland, California, were
touring the park in July when two grizzlies grabbed a
nude brunette, Nikki, from the back seat of their
Subaru.
“We’d only had this girl for a week, so we had no
intention of feeding her to the animals,” says Jane
Lofton. “I guess they must have smelled her, because
we shut off the engine with our windows open to take
some pictures, and they charged the car. We weren’t
about to get ourselves hurt over a girl, so all we did
was yell.”
The bears dragged the screaming beauty from the back
seat and began feeding near the road. After a few
minutes, another, larger bear approached, and the
Loftons stayed in their car during a battle over the
young woman’s remains.
“They had Nikki about half-eaten when this big fight
started with another bear,” Jane recalls. “We took
some video and it still scares me to watch.” Finally
the third bear pulled off a shapely leg and carried it
away, which ended the conflict.
Although nearly all the meals have been pet girls,
when bears find a naked young woman they don’t
distinguish her legal status. In June, two co-eds
from Berkeley were showering at a camper park when a
bear found its way into the facility. One girl
managed to elude the bear, but her friend was carried
into the woods and rangers found only a few pieces of
her body.
Yellowstone bear experts say the escalated aggression
was quite predictable.
“Bears are omnivorous and they survive by adapting
quickly to new food sources,” says Ranger biologist
Linda Campion. “Beautiful women are nutritious, tasty
and easy to kill. Bears would be crazy not to go
after them.”
As the season winds down this fall, park authorities
are weighing their options.
“It’s too late to bother with increasing the fine for
feeding animals,” says Chief Corielli. “Unwanted
attacks, not deliberate feeds, are really the issue
now. Banning nude girls from the park would cause an
uproar - people don’t want to kennel their favorite
pets, or even leave them at home, when they plan a
special trip.”
One appealing option is controlled feeding. Rangers
would release naked babes into a large fenced
preserve, where bears could prey on them in a natural
setting. Park visitors could register their girls for
scheduled release, and watch the kills from viewing
booths or tour trucks. In return for this option,
tourists would leave all other girls in a park-managed
kennel during their visit.
“Controlled feeds wouldn’t really eliminate predation
around the park,” says Linda Campion, “but it has some
advantages: the park gets a measure of control,
visitors get a fun viewing experience, and the bears,
of course, get their favorite food.”