We were at Glacier National Park a few years ago and a mother bear with two cubs climbed up a large valley onto the road and we were shocked that people were stopping their cars and jumping out to get very close (too close to a mother with cubs) picture.

Patrick...please tell me you made that bs up! Surely no one can be that shallow.

Nope. I kid you not. It was in the Tahoe local paper.

Message: Another entry for the stupid things that people do around wild animals category: Currently, there is a 15-17 foot great white shark that has been hanging out in a shallow cove for the last 4 days or so in Woods Hole (Cape Cod). This has everyone in the area very excited, as usually great whites are only spotted locally in the deep waters south of Nantucket. People are hanging around the area hoping to catch a glimpse. Yesterday on the news, four people were in a small boat (not much bigger than a rowboat) and the shark was swimming by them. One of the guys was reaching over the side of the boat, trying to touch the shark's fin! This is a shark that is believed to have not eaten in at least 4 days.

Margie: <they are born that way and they work at perfecting it the rest of their lives.> I agree.

I like to think of these activities as "cleansing the gene pool"...

A few years ago, in Yosemite, we watched an idiot with a sandwich in one hand and a video camera in the other, walk TOWARDS a bear...

~Liz