WHAT THE BEARS KNOW
Well, I suppose we can thank Al Davis and Dan Holler.
Mammoth’s former Police Chief and current Town Manager conspired to fire renowned Mammoth Wildlife Specialist Steve Searles back in the summer of 2020.
Well, technically they didn’t fire him. They just wanted to pay him to work six months out of the year instead of 12.
What a deal!
He told them to go fu …
And suddenly, he had a lot more time on his hands.
So he wrote a book. With Chris Erskine, a veteran L.A. Times columnist.
Two years in the works, “What The Bears Know” will hit various bookstore shelves (order/buy local at the Booky Joint and Spellbinder) on October 3.
Searles and Erskine will host a book signing locally on Saturday, October 7 @ 2 p.m. at the Mammoth Lakes Library.
The big question: Is it any good?
Answer: I’ve read the advance galley. And yes, a damn good read.
It fills in the missing biography of Steve’s youth and upbringing (Searles and Jeannette Walls, who wrote the bestseller “The Glass Castle,” would be fairly comfortable swapping tales). Talks about the very clever way he bought his first property in Mammoth (with the help of a few dozen credit cards). And goes into how he was first introduced to the bears – he was hired by the Town to thin the population by 16.
Yes, his first introduction to bears was an invitation to kill them.
But as Steve observes, “When it comes to wildlife management, the more you shoot, the more you have to shoot. Killing a creature causes an environmental sink – an abundance of food – that draws in even more bears. They can smell for miles and know when a habitat becomes available. If you kill one, here come two more.”
So as Steve discovers, in the supply/demand curve, the best strategy is to go after supply (easily accessible food), which will have the effect of limiting demand (the number of bears looking for it).
He was hired to fix the bear problem. Turns out it was far more of a people problem.
His other ‘aha’ moment comes in relation to pecking order, and Steve’s resolution to appoint himself, “the baddest bear in town.” This after observing a bear he’s named “Big” literally brings the entire local bear population to heel by his sheer presence.
Searles subsequently walks into then-Police Chief Mike Donnelly’s office. “I ask for Donnelly’s blessing to try more novel tactics – rubber bullets, pyrotechnics, even coercion – to teach the bears to fear and respect me so that I can flush them out of danger and keep our town safe. Donnelly says that is fine by him. Far as he is concerned, I can dance with the bears, put them in tutus, or in Broadway shows, as long as 16 of the misfits go away.”
Other members of Mammoth’s police force buy in. Paul Dostie, Andy Lehr, Doug Hornbeck … there’s a particularly compelling story Steve tells about Sgt. Joe Vetter risking life and limb to help a remove a Costco party mix container a young cub had gotten its head stuck in.
And as Steve develops his knowledge surrounding bears, it also informs his personal philosophy and growth.
He is refreshingly honest and blunt regarding his own shortcomings.
What really makes the book work is the partnership between Steve and his co-author Ersklne, who “gets” Steve and is able to effectively translate him.
Erskine, when he took on the assignment, had also suffered recent loss (of his wife to cancer and his son to a traffic accident). The writing of the book seems to have been a catharsis for both, as Steve was coming to terms with his loss of a job and wife (via divorce).
One thing Steve talks about is the intersection of the way one sees themselves, the way others see them, and the way one really is. “The more closely those three elements line up, the better you are. Rarely do those three tangents line up for me. Rarely do I feel at peace.”
It’s a very good book. For Steve’s sake, I wish him peace in that knowledge.
Even if we all know it’ll only last about a week!
