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Yellowstone Grizzly Bears vs. Stephen Colbert!
Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 06:28PM 
“Bears are soulless, godless, rampaging killing machines.” Stephen Colbert
Despite Stephen Colbert’s cowardly and relentless campaign against bears, most of us want to know grizzly bears still roam in our wildlands.
In the past grizzlies inhabited a range that encompassed most of North American west of the Mississippi. Today, only 1,200 grizzly bears in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Washington live in the lower 48 states. Almost half of those bears call the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem home.
The predicted effects of climate change in the Yellowstone area, however, bode ill for the survival of the grizzly. Much of the grizzly bear’s fall diet comes from the nutrient-rich whitebark pine seed.
A bark beetle that infests the tree has been eradicating whitebark pine forests at an alarming rate, mainly due to warming temperatures. In the past, colder temperatures kept the beetle infestations in check. Today, trees are dying at an unprecedented rate.
In the NRDC’s Losing Ground report, Dr. Jesse Logan warns, “We are witnessing the catastrophic collapse of high mountain ecosystems as a result of how people are changing the climate, and grizzly bears could end up paying the price.”
Be green. Don’t let Stephen win in his plight to eradicate grizzly bears. This is your challenge, America and the world! And Stephen, a real man would confront his fears and visit Yellowstone.
PS: Check out more about Stephen Colbert’s view on bears at the hilarious http://www.wikiality.com/Bears Wikality is “The Truthiness Encyclopedia.”
Reader Comments (2)
Just got back from Alaska where the newscasts were all about a teenager who was mauled by a grizzly on the outskirts of Anchorage. (She will recover--physically, at least). Seems some bicycle ride organizers chose a route that went through a known bear trail because there was construction going on in the normal route. Hmmmm. Natural selection at work?
I am a firm believer in natural selection--although I soon may be a victim of it being stupid enough to hike alone in grizzly country.