Today's Dilemma - Trash!

I just got a new garbage can!

Ok, I completely understand why that probably doesn't elicit thoughts of excitement and wonder, but bear with me for a moment...you may find the subject to be more interesting than you might think.

Many people remember, or have heard stories of, the days when throngs of visitors gathered each night for the bear feeding "shows" held in Yellowstone National Park. Trash dumps were well known to both bears and guests, and people often fed bears hand to mouth. Unfortunately, bears are wild creatures, and this practice ultimately led to increased frequency and severity of bear attacks as the animals became habituated to human food and being fed. Thankfully, these "shows" were discontinued in the 1970s and visitors are now taught the familiar(well, to us at least!) mantra that "A fed bear is a dead bear".

Part of living in area dominated by wilderness, no matter how large or small the developed area within it, is learning how to co-habitat with area wildlife. In communities such as mine, that happen to have a very large wildlife preserve right next door, both the abundance and variety of said wildlife also increases. And where there are hungry animals, people and a quickly shrinking window of time before the long, cold winter, there are conflicts. Enter, the Trash Dilemma.

In addition to the feat of co-habitation and general management, Gardiner also has a few other uphill battles in fighting the Trash Dilemma. First, we are a rural community, with many facilities and services located a significant distance away. Second, we are small. Combine this with the distance and investment in time required to reach many services, this often makes the DIY attitude a necessity. One required DYI is just about anything involving trash disposal. Trash pick up, both commercial and residential, is only available if you personally contract with a private company to pick up your trash, and even finding this can be difficult because there aren't many willing to do it. Many of those that are willing are located 50-75 miles away in Livingston or Bozeman, making them a completely inefficient option for businesses like restaurants. This means that most of us have the "Trash Pass". This little pass (which I honestly have no idea how I get or why I need it...no one has EVER asked to see it) which entitles the resident or business to take their trash to the local dump....a big rectangle of chain link fence lined with green boxes, and one lone guy sitting in a folding chair who gives you a funny look if you slow down too much and look like you may not know to go to the box with the big red X on it. Maybe then he might check your pass, but if you look like you know what you're doing, he just waves and smiles.

No, the actual act of taking one's trash to the dump is not a big deal. If so, I'd suggest a persona laziness check. The problems with the dump lie with, first, that the bears like it, and black bears and grizzlies alike are perfectly capable of doing some damage to a chain link fence. Enough damage, in fact, that they had to temporarily electrify it this fall because they were not able to fully repair the remnants of a visit by a local grizzly bear.

Gardiner Dump's Fall Visitor

Talks are constant about the options to actually bear-proof the dump, and for the sake of other bears out there, I sincerely hope they figure out a workable solution, and soon.
Second big dump problem is that even the most efficient person, business or family can't typically get to the dump for each individual trash bag they fill. Keeping stuff in the mud room is just darn stinky and gross, and your plain old run-of-the-mill green garbage can just won't cut it. End result of using green garbage can? Leah driving up to the house at 11pm after a very long 2-job day and finding a very happy black bear sitting next to the back door, completely surrounded by contents of the green garbage can and happily nibbling away. Goodbye to good night's sleep that night since it was almost an hour before he wandered away and I could get to my door! He, and others, made many visits around the area this fall:

Mom and Cubs....meet Chickens and Horse!


Here's where the new garbage can comes in - we have a great organization here in town(led by one very motivated and passionate woman, Ilona Popper) called Bear Awareness Gardiner. The main goal of her organization is to provide, free of charge, bear-resistant garbage cans called "Unbearable Bins" to local residents. The funding for these is provided solely through donations and fundraising, and they are definitely getting out there! Coming up, they are also launching a campaign to assist local restaurants to install commercial bear-resistance recepticals. Go Bear Awareness Gardiner!

Due to the efforts of organizations such as Bear Awareness Gardiner, the Bear Creek Council, Yellowstone Country Guardians and diligence of local residents and businesses, fewer and fewer bears have or will be killed because they learned to eat trash. With effort, maybe we will be able to downgrade the Trash from a dilemma to just annoying one of these days.

The Two Minute Warning on Another Yellowstone Season

One of the things that comes with living in not just a small town, but a small town that is a gateway community to a National Park is learning to accept the concept of seasonal relationships. As another season in Yellowstone winds down, and Gardiner settles into a nice little mud season before the summer traffic arrives, thoughts go to this dynamic and how we all choose to deal with it.

With a year-round population of about 850(as of 2000 census, and including outer-laying areas), a large portion of those you interact with are seasonal staff from both the park and local business who pump up their hours and staff during the busy summer season. A significant portion of these jobs, however, disappear along with the throngs of summer visitors, so as a quickly as these people showed up they are gone again. This was a very tough thing for me my first summer working in Yellowstone...I left Old Faithful with a friend(love you Brent Simon!), bound for our common home state of Oregon, and were both a sobbing mess at the thought of leaving our new-found "family". As the years went by though, this seemed easier each time. Sometimes I attribute this to already having a group of close, established friends so I just didn't meet as many new people; other times I seem to know, deep down, that I probably didn't go out of my way to make new friends, in the name of saving the inevitable, heart wrenching goodbye that comes about more often than not. Surely a bit of each of these is true to a point but, regardless of which, it makes me a bit sad to think of both the countless good-byes and the missed opportunities at wonderful friendships that I may have passed by.

This winter marks my 10th season of working in Yellowstone(not to confuse "season" with "year"...I have worked in the park for about 5 1/2 years) and the passing into the world of double-digit seasons is somewhat bittersweet. Seasonal folks are making plans for their "break", a concept that us with regular day jobs and houses to take care of find a foreign one, at best. "Fun-employment" is a thing of the past; notebook pages filled with addresses of new friends are replaced with trips to the post office to retrieve the electric bill; the countdown begins to the summer days when the grocery store will stay open past 7pm(!) and we all anxiously await the sunshine. But with the sunshine comes the influx of raft guides, housekeepers, servers and of course, the visitors. But, best of all, the seasonal friends will return with pictures and tales of fun adventures....and us regular, full time town folks will start dreaming up ways to get two weeks of vacation at one time :o)

Today's Dilemma - Yellowstone Bison

Bison Dilemma

by Leslie James Quinn on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 7:22pm

OK, I'll line up and let everyone take pot-shots at me. Are the bison that are rounded up and shoved around and sent to slaughterhouses treated in the most humane manner possible? No. But what is the solution?

If we allow the bison to roam completely freely, they will not all return to Yellowstone each summer. They will populate Paradise Valley, then move downstream on the Yellowstone River and Missouri River, and ultimately repopulate the Great Plains. And as alluring as that sounds, there are rather a lot of people dependent upon the wheat that we grow there. This is not a workable solution.

If we provide feed for the bison that have been captured, they will survive. And they and more will require feed in subsequent winters, and it will finally be thousands being fed there, no end in sight, and no longer any semblance of wild bison roaming in Yellowstone (animals are not wild if they are dependent upon humans for food).

A compromise, setting aside a certain area of land north, is a stopgap. Give it a few years and bison will be leaving it and moving down valley. I see no workable solution here.

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Photo by Beth Pratt - Director of Environmental Affairs for Xanterra Parks & Resorts in Yellowstone National Park

The bison of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are just the most recent subjects in the ever-evolving cycle of controversy that is bound to occur in a place like Yellowstone National Park - searching for the fine line between protection of the area and it's resources, and the protection of the economy and industry of the surrounding area.

Each of these debates to arise, from wolf reintroduction to brucellosis to bear management, has seemingly endless points of view. There are those who argue that the animals were here first and thus should be given free reign. There are those who argue that damage to the economy from loss of crops and livestock outweighs the who was here first argument. There are those just love the animals and want to help them without knowing the facts. There are those who just don't love the animals, and want them gone without knowing the facts. Somewhere in the middle there are always those of us who find ourselves in a quandary of understanding both sides and being at a loss in forming an opinion either way. Regardless of where you fall, it is a very real issue at hand when it comes to protecting the resources of our National Parks, and one well worth looking into a little deeper than most us already have.

Recent Articles and Updates

Buffalo Field Campaign



Yellowstone Insider - Bison Slaughter Debated in Court


Billings Gazette - Fort Peck Tribe Builds a Fence In Hopes of Getting Yellowstone Bison


Billings Gazette - Agency Representatives Outline Brucellosis Risks

Associated Press via MSNBC - Montana Governor Blocks Bison Slaughter


I can't, of course, attest to 100% accuracy of facts in listed articles, so read up, whet your interest, and check your facts before mounting an argument!