Rangers have established recommended distances to be maintained between the park's human tourists and its animal hosts. 25 yards (or 75 feet) is a sufficient distance for Moose, Wolves, Caribou, and the predatory Arctic Squirrel. The Grizzly Bear however, requires 300 yards of separation (about 3 football fields). While in the park we saw many Grizzly Bears from the safety of the bus: bears wandering with cubs, bears grazing on berries, and bears spread eagle and asleep on a Caribou carcase. Many were closer than 300 yards, but our pictures were still very poor, even when Vinnie tried to photograph through our binoculars. (Drat, wish we had one of those fancy dancy cameras that we just made fun of). This is actually our best bear picture. If you look at the sides of the sign you can see that bears have nibbled the thick wood and that the rangers have hammered nails so that they stick out of the edges. It doesn't seem to be an effective deterrent, but it does give the sign an authentic wilderness look.
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