WEBVTT - Grizzlies on Trial 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.800 You were listening to History on Trial, a production of 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:15.800 iHeart Podcasts. Listener Discretion advised. Vicky Schlicht and Harry Walker 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.440 were almost back to her dorm when he leaned close 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:24.320 and asked if he could kiss her. She was pleasantly surprised. 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:29.840 Boys didn't always ask first, but Harry was thoughtful like that. 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.600 Vicky couldn't believe she'd only known him for two and 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.479 a half days. Their connection felt much deeper than that. 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.360 Maybe it was everything they had in common. Both of 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.840 them were farm kids, away from home for the first time. 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.760 Maybe it was the hours they'd spent talking, sharing stories 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:55.360 of their families and their likes and dislikes. Maybe it 0:00:55.440 --> 0:01:02.040 was the magical setting midsummer in Yellowstone National the geothermal 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:07.280 pools gently steaming beside them, the deep, black, star spangled 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:12.920 night sky stretching above them. Whatever it was, this connection, 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:20.120 this moment felt special. So Vicky said yes, Harry could 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:24.759 kiss her. He leaned down and they kissed, holding each 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.800 other tight in the shadow of the tall pines. After 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:33.000 a minute, Vicky reluctantly pulled back. She had to work 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.760 the next day and needed to get some sleep. Harry 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:41.360 took her home, then gently kissed her good night. After 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.920 leaving Vicky, Harry walked back to the Old Faithful Inn, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.200 where his friend Philip Bradbury was waiting at the bar. 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:53.560 Philip was easy to spot, six feet tall and skinny 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:57.640 with a shock of red hair. Harry and Philip headed 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.560 out of the inn into the darkness sometime after midnight. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:08.040 It was June twenty fifth, nineteen seventy two, a week 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.680 or so earlier when the pair had decided to go 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.760 to Yellowstone. They'd made a plan to hike out into 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:18.760 the back country and camp there, far from the tourist crowds. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.000 But then, on June twenty second, while picking up groceries 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:28.440 in Livingstone, Montana, Harry had met Vicky. She'd given him 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:30.760 a ride to the park and they'd hit it off. 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.240 Vicky had a summer job at the Old Faithful Inn 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.480 and Harry wanted to stay near her, so Harry and 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.680 Philip had ducked under the barrier ropes by the geothermal 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.119 pools and headed up a forested ridge near Guyser Hill. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.880 Camping like this near a developed area but not in 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:54.680 an official campsite wasn't allowed, but lots of people did it. 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.520 Philip and Harry had found a nice flat spot hidden 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.480 amongst the pines and slept there for two nights without incident. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:08.280 But tonight there was a problem. They couldn't remember exactly 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.880 where their campsite was. They had had a few drinks 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.880 at the inn with Vicki, and the darkness was impenetrable. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.519 Harry shone his flashlight at the trees, hoping to spot 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:25.160 something familiar. They weren't worried. They had nowhere to be, 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:30.760 nothing to do all the time in the world. Philip 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:35.080 and Harry walked side by side, singing camp songs and laughing, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.920 and then suddenly a shadow in the pines, something moving. 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.840 Harry pointed his flashlight at it, but before his brain 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.040 could process what he was seeing, it was on him, 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.360 its teeth and claws and great stinking mass enveloping him 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.240 a grizzly bear. Philip either fell or was struck by 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.440 the bear and began rolling down the ridge. He heard 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.040 Harry scream for help. Philip managed to get to his 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.240 feet and run. When he felt safe, he stopped and 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.839 turned and called Harry, is there a bear up there? 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.919 Harry didn't answer. It took park rangers four and a 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.960 half hours to find Harry's body. He was lying on 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.839 his back one hundred and sixty five feet away from 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:29.080 his campsite. His face was peaceful, like he was sleeping, 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.640 but his body was a gory mess. The bear had 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:38.520 eaten his internal organs. An autopsy would later reveal that 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.400 the bear had crushed his throat, likely only moments after 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:48.479 he screamed. Harry's death was tragic, but it was the 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.160 kind of horrible accident that happens in the wilderness, sometimes 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:57.280 an unavoidable consequence of the collision between humans and nature. 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:04.359 That's what Harry's family thought, at least at first. But 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.520 a month after his funeral, they got a strange phone call. 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.320 On the other end of the line. A woman told 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:17.400 them that Harry's death could have been avoided. According to her, 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:22.400 Harry's death was quote part of a larger pattern of 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:27.880 government misconduct and a big cover up. As the walkers 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:32.200 would soon learn, Harry's death was only the latest in 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:37.240 a long line of troubling interactions between humans and bears 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:42.560 at Yellowstone. Over the past five years, the park management 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:49.800 had radically and controversially changed its bear management policies. Biologists 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.920 and wildlife managers and environmental advocates were locked in a 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:58.400 heated debate over the policy changes. Critics of the new policy, 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.400 including the woman who who called the Walkers, believed that 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:06.440 it was dangerous for humans and bears alike, and they 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:11.479 thought that Harry's death proved their case. What was more, 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:16.960 they thought that Harry's death could change things. If the 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:21.119 Walkers were willing to soothe the National Park Service, maybe 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.360 they could bring attention to the bear issue and get 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:30.760 Yellowstone to switch directions. The Walkers were hesitant. They were 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:35.279 dairy farmers from Alabama. Could they take on the federal government? 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:41.360 After thinking it over, they thought maybe they could, as 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.600 long as it meant getting justice for Harry. It would 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.080 take three years for their case to go to court, 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.240 but when it finally did in nineteen seventy five, it 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.880 would draw some of the nation's top wildlife biologists to 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.800 a courtroom in California and help change the conversation of 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:06.480 about bears forever. Welcome to History on Trial. I'm your host, 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:16.240 Mira Hayward. This week Martin v. United States. At its inception, 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:22.160 Yellowstone National Park was given two missions. The bill creating Yellowstone, 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.240 signed by President Grant on March first, eighteen seventy two 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.280 tasked the park with being both quote a public park 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:37.000 or pleasuring ground, and also with quote the preservation from 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:42.320 injury or spoliation of all natural curiosities or wonders within 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:47.360 said park and their retention in their natural condition. Quickly, 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.400 it became clear that these two goals might contradict each other. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.600 The needs of tourists and the needs of nature are 0:07:55.640 --> 0:08:03.440 not always the same. Tourism needs infrastructure, roads, bridges, hotels, campgrounds, 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:08.560 and bathrooms, all of which require modification of the natural environment. 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:14.560 There's also the question of what exactly natural means. Is 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.680 the natural condition of Yellowstone the condition that government surveyors 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.120 founded in in eighteen seventy two, or is it the 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.760 condition of the primeval land hundreds or thousands of years before. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:33.160 By the eighteen seventies, many species native to Yellowstone, including bison, 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:38.240 had been nearly eradicated by white settlers. Thus the question 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:44.120 of restoration versus preservation arose. Should species be reintroduced to 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:49.280 Yellowstone and should invasive methods be taken to preserve the environment, 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:56.120 measures like spraying pesticides, administering controlled burns, or culling the 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:01.520 elkurds that rapidly multiplied after the park's creation. Generations of 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.840 wildlife managers, government officials, and environmental advocates have struggled to 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.840 find the right answer to these questions. There is perhaps 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.480 no issue that exemplifies the debates over people's needs versus 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:21.600 nature's needs and intervention verse preservation in Yellowstone than the 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:26.680 issue of bear management. Yellowstone is home to black bears 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:31.800 and grizzly bears, both of which are omnivorous eaters. In 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.559 the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties, as the first Yellowstone 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:41.040 hotels were erected, Yellowstone bears found a delicious new food source, 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:47.360 human trash. Piles of food scraps discarded by hotel kitchens 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:53.000 drew swarms of bears. The bears, in turn attracted more 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:57.520 tourists who loved to watch the giant predators delicately gnaw 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:03.400 on chicken bones. Being a commercial opportunity, hotels created feeding 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:08.000 shows makeshift amphitheaters in which tourists could sit on bleachers 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.400 and watch bears eat trash on raised stages. Bears also 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.839 found other ways of getting human food, such as by 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.360 begging tourists who would feed the bears out of their 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:25.280 car windows. Despite the charming appearance of a begging bear. 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:32.000 These were still wild animals. Once skittish around humans, Yellowstones 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.959 bears had by the nineteen thirties lost most of their fear. 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.840 Black bears in particular, grew comfortable and even bold around people, 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.640 and in their eagerness for human food, injuries were bound 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:51.079 to happen. The bears didn't mean to hurt people, they 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:56.040 were usually just startled or impatient. Between nineteen thirty one 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:00.200 and nineteen thirty nine, five hundred and twenty seven people 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:05.440 were injured by bears. Besides the injuries, there were growing 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:09.960 concerns amongst National Park Service biologists that getting bears hooked 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:14.040 on human food would be bad for the animals. The 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.880 Service in general had been slowly adopting a more non 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:23.520 interventionist policy towards wildlife management. In nineteen thirty nine, Park 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:28.600 Service Director Arno Camera released a policy memorandum declaring that 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.120 quote every species shall be left to carry on its 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:38.800 existence unaided. Two years later, in accordance with this directive, 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.680 all bear feeding shows at Yellowstone were shut down. But 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.840 by this point the Yellowstone bears were conditioned to expect 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.640 human food when they did not get it at the 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:56.040 feeding shows, they began prowling campgrounds and scrounging around trash dumps. 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.520 In response, park rangers began killing bears who kept returning 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.440 to human areas, but this couldn't keep every bear away. 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.520 In nineteen forty two, a grizzly bear killed forty five 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.080 year old nurse Martha Henson near the Old Faithful campground. 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.800 Next year, the Park Service hired a biologist to study 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.959 the bear problem. The biologists recommended that the parks shut 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.560 down hand feeding by visitors, but officials were reluctant to 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.880 enforce a hand feeding ban because bear feeding was one 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:33.079 of the park's largest draws. There was another component to 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:37.080 the bear problem. The parks had a responsibility not just 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.800 to protect their visitors, but also to protect bears. But 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.880 the park didn't know exactly how many bears it had, 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.880 or where they lived, or what their behaviors were. This 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.679 was especially true of the park's grizzly population, who kept 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.199 to the shadows more than black bears did. By the 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:01.400 late nineteen fifties, Yellowstone's chief naturalist, David Kahn, decided that 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:06.720 a comprehensive survey was needed. He hired John and Frank Craighead, 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:13.079 pioneering wildlife biologists to study yellowstones grizzlies and make recommendations 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:18.560 for conserving them. John and Frank Craighead were identical twins 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:24.000 born in nineteen sixteen. They'd grown up outdoors, cultivating a 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.960 love for wildlife and a willingness to get their hands dirty, 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:32.240 scaling cliffs and reaching into eagles nests while studying birds 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.200 of prey. By age twenty five, they'd been published in 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:41.080 National Geographic, and their celebrity only rose from there. With 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.680 their handsome, weathered faces, the Craigheads made excellent poster boys 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:50.000 for the burgeoning field of wildlife management in the nineteen fifties. 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.599 After a stint developing wilderness survival training programs for the 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.480 military and completing their PhDs at the University of Michigan, 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:02.199 the Craigheads built neighboring laws cabins in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.559 and settled down with their wives and children. The grizzly 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.720 research was the perfect study for the Craigheads. Frank was 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:15.080 interested in the application of technology to wildlife management, and 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:19.000 he began developing a radio collar large enough for grizzly bears. 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.240 The first of its kind. In nineteen sixty one, the 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:27.600 Craigheads fitted their first collar. They also developed a system 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:32.560 for identifying bears. Before the Craigheads, the standard practice was 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:38.040 tagging bears ears with small, metallic numbered ear tags, but 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.120 these tags were impossible to tell apart at a distance. 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:47.000 The Craigheads began using colored plastic ear loops instead. Over 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.560 the next eight years, they would capture and track scores 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:55.560 of grizzlies, gaining great insight into the bears' lives. In 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.080 nineteen sixty seven, the Craigheads turned in an one hundred 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:03.480 and thirteen page report to Yellowstone leadership. Besides a collection 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.000 of observations on grizzly behavior, including the fact that they 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.760 had enormous ranges and that they often returned to where 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.640 they came from after they were relocated, the report contained 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:20.160 recommendations for grizzly management. Many of the Kraigheads recommendations were 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:25.040 about Yellowstones dumps. In the wake of the Feeding Show's closure, 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.320 dumps had become a major food source for bears, but 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:33.960 the dumps were unnatural, unsightly, and promoted bears dependence on 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:38.520 human food. The park wanted to close them. The Cragheads 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.600 agreed that the dumps should be closed, but they advocated 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:47.320 for a gradual, careful closure plan. They recommended placing elk 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:51.240 carcasses in the backwoods to attract bears away from the dump. 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.240 They also recommended that all other sources of human food 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.479 be eliminated so that bears would not turn to campgrounds 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.160 or trash cans as subsidance for the dumps. While the 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.080 dump slowly closed, the Craigheads concluded the park should continue 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:11.480 to carefully monitor and track the grizzlies. These recommendations may 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.440 not seem controversial on the surface, but the atmosphere at 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.600 Yellowstone was very different in nineteen sixty seven than it 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.600 had been when the Craigheads began their study in nineteen 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:27.480 fifty nine. In nineteen sixty six, Glenn Cole became the 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:32.440 park's head wildlife manager. Jordan Fisher Smith, in his book 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:37.880 Engineering Eden, describes Cole as quote a champion of a 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:43.320 let nature take its course philosophy. This philosophy was shared 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:48.440 by Jack Anderson, who became Yellowstone superintendent in nineteen sixty seven. 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:53.560 Cole and Anderson wanted Yellowstone to be as free from 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:59.240 human influence as possible. Yellowstone's centennial was only five years 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.760 away in nineteen seventy two, and by that year Cole 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.760 and Anderson hoped that the park would be a pristine 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:11.840 vision of untouched wilderness, minus the hotels and rangers. Of course, 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.760 so the Craighead's idea of gradually closing the dumps was 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.200 a non starter. If they wanted bears to be weaned 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.560 off human food in five years, the dumps would have 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:28.440 to close now. Cole and Andersen thought. The Craigheads cautioned 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.879 that this could be dangerous. The bears would search for 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.920 other sources of human food, increasing the likelihood of dangerous 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:40.040 encounters with humans, but Cole and Anderson were convinced that 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.240 they just needed to rip the band aid off. They 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:48.280 also vetoed continued tracking of the bears. The craigheads garishly 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:52.119 colored ear loops and bulky radio colors didn't align with 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:56.439 their vision for the park. Cole and Anderson were not 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.879 alone in their passion for removing human influence from the 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:05.120 National parks. Non intervention was an increasingly popular philosophy amongst 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.600 ecologists and park managers. In the words of Howard Zoenheiser, 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.320 chief author of the Wilderness Act and Executive Secretary of 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:17.960 the Wilderness Society. With regard to areas of wilderness, we 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:23.600 should be guardians, not gardeners. Cole and Anderson also received 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.879 backing from one of the most prominent figures in their field, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:32.200 a Starker Leopold. Leopold had not always favored this kind 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:36.080 of thinking. In nineteen sixty three, Leopold had written a 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:40.160 report for the federal government's Advisory Board on Wildlife Management 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.360 that had become the guiding document for the ecological management 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:49.960 of national parks. In it, Leopold had supported intervention as 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:54.680 long as it was used to simulate earlier, more natural conditions, 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:59.800 cutting down trees to clear historic viewpoints or using bulldozers 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:04.639 to recreate buffalo wallows, for example. But by the late sixties, 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.200 after coming under public criticism for certain park practices, including 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.720 the mass killing of elk which had begun to overrun Yellowstone, 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.760 Leopold had softened his views. He was also good friends 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.720 with Glenn Cole. The two went fishing in Yellowstone every year. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.280 In nineteen sixty nine, after a meeting about bear management 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:29.280 at the park, Leopold, in his highly influential role as 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.440 head of the Natural Science's Advisory Committee presented a report 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.200 to the National Park Service in which he did not 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.639 take a position on whether fast or slow closure of 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.879 the dumps was better, essentially leaving the decision in Coal 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:49.560 and Anderson's hands. Leopold did, however, endorse the Craighead's ideas 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.240 about establishing elk bait stations in the back country and 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:57.560 continuing to track the bears, But Cole and Anderson did 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.040 not set up the bait stations, and they directed rangers 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.160 to remove any colored markings from the bears they captured. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.000 Over the next three years, Cole and Anderson put their 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:14.520 dump closure plan into action. They put electric fences around 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:19.199 some dumps and covered others with dirt. The Craigheads vehemently 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:24.640 objected and raised their concerns publicly. Tensions between the brothers 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:29.320 and the park administration grew quickly. In nineteen seventy one, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:34.439 Superintendent Andersen refused to renew their Grizzly study contract. To 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:39.080 underline his point, he bulldozed and burned the Craighead's lab 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:46.040 in the park. The Craigheads were heartbroken and furious. The bears, too, 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:50.520 did not seem happy with developments. More and more bears 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:54.080 were showing up at campgrounds to look for food. Rangers 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.840 tried to tranquilize and relocate these bears, but bears had 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.879 an uncanny knack for quickly making their way back to 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.600 where they'd been picked up. If a bear was an 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.639 habitual offender and refused to stay away, or if it 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:12.480 threatened visitors, rangers would kill it, But rangers couldn't be 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.000 everywhere at once. All it took was a second for 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.480 a bear to inflict fatal injuries on a human. As 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:24.560 encounters between bears and tourists increased, many feared that bears 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.680 would not be the only casualty of the new policy. 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:33.800 It was into this environment that Harry Walker, blissfully unaware 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:38.679 of anything to do with bears, arrived at Yellowstone in 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:47.320 the summer of nineteen seventy two. Harry Walker loved the farm, 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.600 but he also desperately wanted to get away from it. 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:56.400 Harry loved the farm's gently rolling fields, its lush grass 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:01.199 that people said produced the sweetest milk in Alabama Chocalaca Valley. 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:06.080 He loved working with animals, delivering calves, and riding his 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:10.520 horse Comanche. He loved his family. His father Wallace and 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:16.560 mother Louise, his three sisters, Betty, Carolyn, and Jenny. So 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.439 why did he want to leave? Well, to begin with, 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.240 there was the pressure. Twenty five year old Harry knew 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:27.119 that his father Wallace expected him to take over the 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.879 farm one day. That was fine with Harry, except that 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.680 before he settled down in Alabama, he wanted to see 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.040 a little of the world first. And then there was 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:41.920 the work. Running a farm is hard physical labor. When 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.600 Harry was fourteen, a horse had kicked his arm, breaking it. 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:50.320 The arm had pained him ever since. By early nineteen 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:53.600 seventy two, Harry could barely lift a glass of iced 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:57.760 tea without wincing from watching his father stoop and rub 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.679 his aching back. Harry knew that the physical challenges would 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:07.040 only continue. The work also didn't pay well. The money 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:09.800 the family made from its milk wasn't enough to pay 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.680 Harry a full time salary, so he had to take 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.560 on part time jobs too, at a pipe foundry, in 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:20.800 a pool hall, at a construction site in the summer. 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:24.840 Harry sometimes worked twenty two hours a day, and that 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:27.200 was on top of his service with the National Guard. 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:31.040 Because National guardsmen did not serve abroad at this time, 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.560 Joining the National Guard meant that you could avoid being 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:38.960 sent to Vietnam. The local Guard commander, knowing how much 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:42.560 Wallace needed Harry at home, had recruited Harry in nineteen 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:46.639 sixty seven. Harry had a complicated relationship with the Guard. 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:51.160 He excelled in his first years, winning awards for his sharpshooting, 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:54.879 but he grew increasingly frustrated with what he saw as 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:59.240 the Guard's arbitrary rules and regulations. He clashed with a 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:02.320 new commander in the summer of nineteen seventy one over 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:07.119 a rule requiring short hair. By nineteen seventy two, Harry 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:10.760 had reached a breaking point. He started spending more time 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:13.000 at a friend's house, which had become a sort of 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:17.480 hippie magnet, drawing in care free kids traveling across the country. 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:21.240 He stopped showing up at National Guard assemblies and was 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:25.920 declared absent without official leave. He told his father Wallace, 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:30.560 that he was thinking about taking a vacation. Wallace supported 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:34.040 the vacation idea he knew how hard Harry was working. 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.439 He told his son to enjoy some time off and 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:41.399 promised that he would secure a bank loan so that 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:46.199 he could begin paying Harry a full time salary. On 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:49.320 June sixth, Harry hopped in a gray Buick along with 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:53.560 four other young adults, including his high school classmate Philip Bradbury. 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:56.840 He hadn't told his mother, Louise that he was leaving 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:01.320 because he knew she'd try to stop him. The group 0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:04.840 stayed overnight in Louisville with Harry's older sister, Carolyn and 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:08.720 her husband. Then they drove north with no real plan. 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:12.280 For the next few weeks, the group bounced across the 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:18.479 Northeast and Midwest, staying with friends. Eventually they headed to Colorado. 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:21.760 At a campground outside Aspen, they met a girl who 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:25.000 told them that they'd just had to see Yellowstone, the 0:25:25.040 --> 0:25:29.520 most beautiful place on Earth. Philip and Harry were sold. 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:32.960 Harry called his father and asked Wallace to mail his 0:25:33.040 --> 0:25:37.000 camping gear to Cheyenne, Wyoming. He told his father that 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:40.000 he was as happy as he'd ever been and that 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:44.480 he wished Wallace could someday see the beautiful Rocky Mountains. 0:25:45.200 --> 0:25:47.280 Philip and Harry split up from the rest of their 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:49.640 group in Boulder and hitchhiked the rest of the way 0:25:49.680 --> 0:25:53.240 to Cheyenne. Once there, Harry picked up his camping gear 0:25:53.440 --> 0:25:57.040 and called his father once more. Wallace told him that 0:25:57.080 --> 0:26:01.320 the bank loan had come through. That great Daddy, Harry 0:26:01.359 --> 0:26:06.199 said they would never speak again. Three days later, on 0:26:06.280 --> 0:26:09.199 June twenty second, Harry was standing by the side of 0:26:09.200 --> 0:26:12.920 the road in Livingston, Montana, with his thumb stuck out. 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:17.720 Pretty brunette eighteen year old Vicky Schlicht pulled over. Harry 0:26:17.760 --> 0:26:19.879 said he was hoping for a ride to a nearby 0:26:19.920 --> 0:26:23.000 campground to pick up Philip. Vicky said she could do that, 0:26:23.280 --> 0:26:25.640 and that she could also drive them into Yellowstone after 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:28.240 where she was working for the summer at the Old 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:31.640 Faithful Inn. The trio spent much of the next two 0:26:31.680 --> 0:26:35.560 and a half days together. Harry and Vicki hid it off. 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:40.160 She liked his long eyelashes, his shaggy, light brown hair, 0:26:40.680 --> 0:26:44.679 his kindness, the way he really listened to her. He 0:26:44.800 --> 0:26:47.480 talked about the farm, how he wanted to take her 0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:50.800 there and introduce her to his family and to his 0:26:50.840 --> 0:26:58.359 beloved horse, Comanche. They were cautiously but willingly imagining a 0:26:58.440 --> 0:27:03.879 future together that that future would never come. Shortly before 0:27:03.920 --> 0:27:07.480 one a m on June twenty fifth, not long after 0:27:07.520 --> 0:27:11.600 the pair had their first kiss, a grizzly bear killed Harry. 0:27:13.040 --> 0:27:18.160 The Walker family was devastated by Harry's death. Wallace used 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:20.840 the money he'd secured from the bank loan to ship 0:27:20.880 --> 0:27:26.280 Harry's body home from Yellowstone. The family's loss was twofold. 0:27:26.960 --> 0:27:32.119 They'd lost their precious son, and they'd lost a future too. 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:35.840 Wallace and Louise had counted on Harry taking over the farm. 0:27:36.600 --> 0:27:39.480 They had counted on his labor to help support the family. 0:27:40.800 --> 0:27:45.720 In the swipe of a paw, these dreams were gone. 0:27:45.760 --> 0:27:49.119 A month after Harry's funeral, Louise Walker picked up the 0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:53.159 ringing telephone. On the other end was a woman named 0:27:53.280 --> 0:27:56.960 Martha Shell. Martha Shell was a fifty seven year old 0:27:56.960 --> 0:28:00.960 housewife from Kansas City, Missouri. She and her husband spent 0:28:01.040 --> 0:28:03.840 part of the year at their cabin in Colorado and 0:28:03.960 --> 0:28:08.280 took frequent excursions to Yellowstone, where they loved to watch wildlife, 0:28:08.800 --> 0:28:12.879 especially bears. But in the late nineteen sixties they'd notice 0:28:12.880 --> 0:28:16.359 that the bear population seemed to be dropping. The Shells 0:28:16.400 --> 0:28:20.000 weren't the only ones to notice this decline. Visitors to 0:28:20.080 --> 0:28:23.840 Yellowstone were writing complaint letters to the park Service saying 0:28:23.880 --> 0:28:26.640 that they weren't seeing any of the park's fabled bears. 0:28:27.640 --> 0:28:30.560 Once Martha Shell learned that the Park Service was killing 0:28:30.600 --> 0:28:33.439 bears who did not stay away from humans, she was 0:28:33.520 --> 0:28:36.720 certain that this was the cause of the problem. She 0:28:36.840 --> 0:28:41.560 began advocating for policy changes at Yellowstone and eventually connected 0:28:41.600 --> 0:28:47.400 with John and Frank Craighead. When Martha heard about Harry 0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:51.160 Walker's death, she was certain that Glenn Cole and Jack 0:28:51.240 --> 0:28:55.600 Anderson's bear policy was to blame. The abrupted dumb closures 0:28:55.640 --> 0:28:58.480 and the subsequent loss of food she and the Craigheads 0:28:58.480 --> 0:29:03.760 believed had made bears desperate and reckless. On the phone 0:29:03.800 --> 0:29:07.440 to Louise Walker, Martha Shell explained that the Park Service 0:29:07.560 --> 0:29:12.120 was blaming her son for his death. This was true. 0:29:12.160 --> 0:29:15.000 The Park Service had released statements claiming that Harry and 0:29:15.040 --> 0:29:18.200 Philip's choice to leave food out in their campsite and 0:29:18.240 --> 0:29:22.160 to camp illegally were the reasons Harry had died. Martha 0:29:22.280 --> 0:29:25.680