to hear his name called out, Wymon glanced to his left. He’d just come from a committee meeting and had walked out onto the steps of the Montana State capitol building in Helena with his close friend Jim Whitefeather, only to have a microphone shoved in his face.
“Good news travels fast,” Jim muttered. The two of them were disappointed that a final decision wouldn’t be reached for another month when they would meet with the governor again. The eager-beaver reporter already suspected the worst outcome would happen in thirty days. No doubt he considered this delay good news.
Wymon and the members of the committee had been in the public eye for the last six months raising awareness of a controversial issue close to his heart. They’d welcomed the publicity to get their message across and had held debates across the state, some of which had been in the news.
On this day, however, he would have liked to ignore the negative attention. He and Jim needed to be diplomatic because their fight wasn’t over. They had another month to convince the public that this issue was worth fighting for.
“Naturally I’d hoped for a positive decision today,” Wymon told the reporter. “But I’m feeling confident that next month we will be successful.”
He felt the reporter bristle. “With you being the head of the Sapphire Ranch, it’s well known that you’re one of the biggest proponents for the reintroduction of the grizzly bear to the Sapphire and Bitterroot wilderness in western Montana.”
“That’s right. My colleague here, Mr. James Whitefeather of the Nez Perce tribe, is another big proponent. We’re part of a much larger group dedicated to fulfilling our initial mission statement.”
“If you would, highlight it again for our television audience.”
Taking the opportunity to speak on one of his favorite subjects, Wymon said, “Our vision is that one day the grizzly will once again have a population in northwest Montana. We want to see them interact with the greater Yellowstone area population to the south as they did hundreds of years ago when thousands of them lived here before being killed off.”
“But, Mr. Clayton—as I understand it, today’s lack of a decision means most voters in Montana believe the issue is on a downward spiral.”
“All great ideas face setbacks,” Wymon countered. “We’re continually working to get the necessary votes. In a month’s time we hope to win by a landslide.”
The reporter squinted at him. “You think that’s possible?”
“Anything’s possible, and the decisions made by our committee will serve to guide the federal and state agencies involved in grizzly bear management. It’s our belief that a new grizzly population will contribute to the balance and harmony of nature. It will also contribute significantly to long-term conservation and recovery of the species.”
“What do you have to say in response to State Representative Farnsworth’s attacks on your coalition? He claims that the majority of people are against reintroducing the Ursus horribilis to the area. This hot issue has had tempers flaring on both sides of the state border.”
“A slender majority are currently against it.” Wymon’s jaw hardened in reaction. “I’d say the man who gave the species its scientific name had never encountered a grizzly outside of the Lewis and Clark reports. A damn shame considering it was rightly recognized as Ursus arctos, but the ‘horrible’ stuck, and the grizzly was forever mislabeled in the cruelest of ways.”
“You question history?”
“Not history, just one man’s uninformed opinion. I wonder how many people in your viewing audience realize that in the entire 142-year history of Yellowstone National Park, there have only been eight reported human deaths by bears, and not all of them have been proven to be by grizzlies. That’s one in every seventeen years. The chances of being killed in a car accident or in a plane accident are so much greater—there’s no contest.
“But to answer your question, I’ll give you a quote from John Muir, the Scottish naturalist, who was an early advocate for preserving America’s wilderness. He spent three nights in the forest with Teddy Roosevelt who had the foresight to establish our national parks. You know the story about how the teddy bear was named after him?”
“I can’t say I do.”
That didn’t surprise Wymon. “His hunting party treed a small black bear and waited for Teddy to take the shot, but he decided that killing the young trapped bear wasn’t sporting.
“To paraphrase a quote of Muir’s on the grizzly, he said, ‘He’s neither an enemy nor a means to our spiritual development, neither something to conquer nor something to experience. He’s simply an equal.’”
“An equal?”
“Yes. Muir said, ‘Nature’s object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness of each one of them.’” Wymon emphasized the specific word.
The reporter frowned. “You mean they were created for their own happiness? Even the grizzly?”
“That’s right.” Jim took over to finish the quote. “‘And not the creation of all plants and animals for the happiness of one who wants things his own way.’ That is man’s arrogance. A better title for him should be Homo sapien horribilis.”
At the reporter’s stunned expression, Wymon almost laughed out loud. He’d bought horses from his good friend Jim for several years. The man had a great sense of humor, which was very much in evidence at the moment.
Jim kept talking. “Consider that Montana has fifteen mountain ranges above six thousand feet in seventeen counties that include, among others, the Bitterroot, Garnet, Big Belt and Sapphire. All were the natural habitat for the now-dead grizzlies who have every right to be here today.”
Wymon muttered “Amen” under his breath. “Now you’ll have to excuse us. We’ve got to get to the airport.” He and Jim left the confused-looking reporter to grill the others coming out of the meeting and hurried down the steps in the June heat to a waiting limo.
During the short ride they talked business. Next week they would meet again and figure out a ground game to reach every voter in Montana and Idaho. Wymon also planned to go up in the mountains with a couple of the wildlife experts and rangers to discuss a new conflict management program to put in place.
One of their biggest priorities was to discuss the uncertainty of the survival outlook for translocated grizzlies. There was also the problem of capturing enough sub-adult females to meet the shortened time frame when they were in heat.
Once they reached the airport, Jim got on a plane to fly back to his family in Missoula. Wymon took a flight to Stevensville, a small town in Ravalli County in the western part of Montana. From there he’d drive his truck to the ranch five miles away.
It was a good thing Wymon’s brother Eli had married recently and was running the ranch on a full-time basis. It allowed Wymon to focus on finding the funding necessary to revitalize the program he and his friends had instituted the year before.
No doubt it would take a hundred years at least to see his vision realized. Wymon would be dead before then, but he and Jim were in lockstep to help secure a recovered population of grizzly bears that would one day include a core of five hundred or more in the northern Continental Divide area.
They
