Under pressure from the National Rifle Association, the Bush administration has announced that it will re-open 25-year-old regulations governing firearms in America’s national parks.
The current regulations governing gun possession in America's national parks simply require that guns be unloaded and stowed -- reasonable and limited regulations that were established during the Reagan administration. These regulations exclude units of the National Park System that allow hunting and they enable hunters to safely transport guns when traveling through national parks on their way to nearby hunting grounds. In fact, in Alaska, you can carry a loaded weapon in all units except Klondike Gold Rush, Sitka, and the former Mt. McKinley National Park and Glacier Bay and Katmai National Monuments.
The National Parks Conservation Association supports the right of Americans to own guns and use them responsibly, but our Alaska Regional Office is concerned with how the change in gun regulations could affect Katmai National Park and Preserve, in particular.
Brooks Camp in Katmai is a popular brown bear viewing location. But unlike other popular bear viewing sites such as McNeil River, Brooks Camp has no limit on the number of people that can visit, so bears and lots of guests regularly mingle in close quarters. Our concern is that anxious park visitors not used to hanging around brown bears may over-react to bear behavior that is not life-threatening.
The National Park Service orients Brooks Camp visitors on how to behave around bears and they have a good system to keep people from coming in direct contact with bears, but ultimately it can't always be avoided. And you can just imagine the reaction of an armed visitor from the Lower 48 coming face-to-face with a Brooks brown bear behaving in a way that appears threatening.
Most visitors at Brooks Camp are very cautious around the bears - in part because they are unarmed. If visitors began carrying loaded guns, they may not take as much caution and care around the bears because they feel more protected.
In this situation, if a visitor armed with a handgun misreads bear behavior and panics, a series of possible events could occur:
1. The visitor fires a shot in the air to scare the bear. This likely won't scare a bear off, because although the Park Service tries to condition the bears to stay away from people, the reality is that the bears at Brooks Camp often just ignore loud noises.
2. At this point, the scared visitor could further panic and shoots the bear with the handgun, which is rarely fatal to a large coastal brown bear (a rifle would be more capable of killing a large bear). Now, you have a wounded (and potentially erratic) bear in and around a trail system, cabins, a lodge and a popular fishing stream all filled with people.
Shooting a bear in and around Brooks Camp would also put other park visitors at risk, as there are always other people on the trails or around the lodge and cabins. In a panic, when a visitor is frightened by a bear and opens fire, they may not be aware of the location of other visitors who may be nearby.
While most Alaskans embrace their firearms, they have accepted that in some of Alaska’s national park units - like Katmai - the lack of firearms provides for a unique park experience. Guns at Brooks Camp could blow that experience away.
Jim Stratton is the Alaska regional director for the NPCA.
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Comments
I'm getting into this debate a bit late due to my recent arrival to the forum. Jim Stratton raises valid concerns regarding the carrying of personal firearms in national parks in general and in Katmai in particular. For those who have not been to Brooks River in Katmai, the interaction of visitors and bears is one of the most unusual situations to be found in any national conservation unit. There is a dynamic and delicate balance between people and bears that is possible, in large part, due to mutual respect and a low threat level. This is not to say there have not been problems, but I know of only one incident in which a park employee sustained a minor wound. It is not unusual to meet a bear face to face within a few yards on a park trail. These are among the world's largest bears. The golden rule in the park is that the bears have the right-of-way, and people must move aside to allow the bears room to pass. A day at Brooks River will give you a lifetime of bear stories. Visitors are not permitted to carry firearms for a very good reason. First, it would change the dynamics of the existing truce between bears and people and possibly result in much greater restrictions on visitation. A wounded giant grizzly bear in a concentration of visitors is the stuff of nightmares.
Nice debate -- the point has been rendered moot by events -- in August a 900 lb Brown Bear charged a man walking his dog in the Kenai area. The charge was predatory and he managed to kill the bear at a distance of a few feet with a Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan in .454 Casull. Without it he would have been killed. This is the FIRST reported incident where a handgun has killed a Bear while it was involved in a predatory attack without the person being injured. Would pepper spray have worked? Probably not in this case since the attack was predatory. Was this fellow lucky - YOU BET!
Bottom line he was prepared, lucky, and is alive as a result.
Now down here in Florida I've seen drug deals (and importations) in the Everglades and there have been a number of armed robberies as well over the years. You don't need a Bear Gun to stop these sorts of things and, sadly, they are more common than we would all like them to be. Why are these things taking place in the Everglades National Park? (1) There are only 2 Enforcement Rangers on duty within the lower part of the park during daylight hours and virtually none after dark. (2) The visitors in the park have money, pawnable goods (cameras, cell phones jewelry etc.) and absoultely no way to defend themselves (Mace and Pepper spray are illegal, as are firearms under the current or old laws). I'll probably not carry a gun after the new law goes into effect but that armed robber planning a job won't be included on my notification list so he's gonna have to take a chance that "today" I did not -- that is a big change in his risk level so he's less likely to give it a go.... This makes all of us safer without my ever having to strap the damned thing on and lug it around!
So, for all of you that want safer National Parks, I'd appreciate your thanks and I expect you to spread the word far and wide that every visitor in the National Park is "Armed and Dangerous" even if we arent! ;)