Blue Crab Boulevard

There is a flurry of bear stories in the news today. The first one is about a bear who has decided that tents are just gift wrapping for the edible contents within. Said contents being humans.

Jim Walters of Fromberg credits a fellow recreationist for saving his life after a black bear pounced on his tent at a campground in the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.

‘‘I don’t think he ever growled,’’ said Walters, 54. ‘‘He just plopped right on top of me. It was quite the wake-up call.

‘‘He didn’t claw me. He didn’t bite me. He had a hold of me with his arms, and he wouldn’t let go of me,’’ Walters continued. ‘‘He just wouldn’t get off me.’’

Todd Loomis and his family arrived at the campsite on Bighorn Lake by boat Tuesday morning. His wife, Tammy, spotted a black bear through the willows, and Todd started taking pictures.

But as he walked closer to get a better view, he could see the bear was on top of a tent.

‘‘You could just see the tent jumping up and down,’’ Loomis said.

Walters said he tried rolling toward the tent door, but the bear kept him pinned.

‘‘I was kicking him, punching him. I couldn’t get him off me,’’ Walters said.

Loomis started yelling. The bear stood up, looked at him, then moved about 10 feet away to the edge of the campsite. Walters stuck his face outside the tent, then scrambled out in his underwear.

The men threw some rocks at the bear, and yelled and waved their arms in a standoff that ended when the bear finally walked away.

The bear had already torn up an unoccupied tent looking for a snack. Park rangers closed the campground briefly and intend to destroy the bear - who is completely unafraid of humans. However, first they have to identify the bear. So they have reopened the campground and are, for all intents and purposes, using campers as bait for the bear. Yeesh.

On to Nevada, where complaints about bears are at a record high. There are so many that authorities can't deal with them all. Well, except to blame the humans.

"Seeing a bear tipping over garbage cans and drinking out of a horse tank is not an imminent threat," said the weary biologist. "I simply cannot respond to these lower priority calls. In fact, do not even call us if it is simply an issue of bears and trash. Be responsible and use bear-resistant containers and the bear will disappear."

(Note, the humans should be making sure garbage is not accessible to the bears. That's basic responsibility, folks.) Folks in Nevada should be happy they aren't being used as bear bait.

Final item, also from Nevada, where the local head of the "BEAR League" is encouraging people to act as bear bait.

With streams going dry in the backcountry, bears have been coming into neighborhoods in record numbers. The BEAR League has been receiving 150-200 calls per day, compared to about 50 two years ago, said Ann Bryant, executive director of the Lake Tahoe-based BEAR League.

Twenty bears had been hit by cars by the end of July, Bryant said. Washoe County Sheriff's deputies reported another one killed by a car on Friday on the Mount Rose Highway. That number has already surpassed the record 19 bears hit in 2005.

Sgt. Carl Barnett of the Incline Village Substation said, on average, his office receives about 12- to-15 bear-related calls per day. Eighty percent of those calls result in actual bear sightings, he said.

The Tahoe Basin has the second highest density of black bears in North America, with several bears per square mile at times, according to the Nevada Department of Wildlife Web site.

However, despite the number of bear sightings this year, some question whether the slaying Aug. 2 could and should have been handled differently.

Sgt. Erik Frederickson responded with deputies Jason Wood and Randy Vawters to a bear call at 130 Rubicon Peak Lane at about 5:30 a.m.

Capt. Steve Kelly, commander at the Incline Village Substation, said the homeowner called the sheriff's office, saying a bear was in his house. He then locked himself and his family in the master bedroom, waiting for authorities to arrive.

Once the deputies arrived, Kelly said they opened the garage door to provide the bear an escape route.

However, when Frederickson looked through the open dining room window Kelly said the bear spotted him. The animal growled and charged through the window at Frederickson, who shot the bear with a shotgun at close range in self defense.

Here's the bear leaguer:

(Ann) Bryant disagreed, saying it couldn't have been the bear's intention to attack Frederickson because black bears aren't mean-spirited.

Another argument she made was the family never should have locked itself in a bedroom.

"The thing that gets me is the family was too afraid to approach the bear - they were scared, so they hid in the bedroom. It's shameful," Bryant said. "That's what is happening in the basin. People are being kept in fear by (NDOW and the California Department of Fish and Game) because they're telling them it's OK to be afraid. It's just shameful.

"That's why this bear was needlessly shot. Because the family was to afraid to yell at the bear to 'get out' and stand its territory."

The bear needn't be "mean spirited", it merely has to act like a bear. That includes attacking if it feels threatened. Or if it startled by, say, some people stamping and waving their arms while shouting. Anthropomorphizing madly won't change that. The Disneyfication of nature continues apace for some people.