Even as Grizzly Park opened to the public last month after eight years of acrimonious public debate, Robinson claimed not to understand why conservationists oppose him so bitterly, except (he hints darkly) as competition for their own grizzly-related fund raising. To him, the benefits of Grizzly Park are clear. It will make the animals accessible to the national park’s 3 million annual visitors, hardly any of whom get to see the 200-odd bears believed to inhabit the area. Fifty cents of each $6.50 adult admission to Grizzly Park, and a percentage of other revenues, are pledged toward grizzly conservation efforts. By last week only four of a promised dozen or more bears were actually on the premises, including two 6-month-old cubs frolicking in an acre of grass and trees enclosed by an electrified fence. But Robinson has Disneyesque plans for luxury hotels, giant-screen nature theaters and a “world class” education center including “robotic creatures from the prehistoric past” depicting the history of the Yellowstone ecosystem. He sees it as a model of how business can help save an endangered species by making it the focus of its own destination resort.
Unfortunately, that attitude is decades behind the trend in environmental thought, which has moved away from an emphasis on large charismatic species and toward a broader concern with the habitat that supports them. “Yellowstone is an ecosystem,” says Louisa Willcox, program director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “This place gives the message to the public that Yellowstone is a glorified zoo.” To those working to keep grizzlies alive in the wild, the denizens of Grizzly Park are the miserable victims of interspecies exploitation. “Are we ready to prostitute captive animals to get money to save the wild ones?” asks Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Is this morally justified?”
In part, the issue has come to a head over Robinson’s s plan to make Grizzly Park a refuge for nuisance bears, those that have tasted once too often the forbidden fruit of the Dumpster. Such bears usually get sent back into the wilderness for a second (or third) chance, but the incorrigibles have to be destroyed–on average about six of them a year in the Lower 48. To conservationists, this is tragic evidence that we need more wilderness. Nothing would be solved, in their estimation, by setting up a retirement home for troubled grizzlies. Ralph Morgenweck, regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, puts his finger on what conservationists don’t like about Robinson’s proposal: it would “assuage peoples’ consciences that the bears won’t have to die.”
In theory, Morgenweck says, the issue shouldn’t arise very often, because the law does not permit transferring endangered species to private ownership. But grizzlies aren’t an endangered species in Alaska. The first three of Grizzly Park’s specimens were captive-bred in Washington State. But then Robinson heard of an “incorrigible garbage bear” that was scheduled to be killed in Alaska’s Denali National Park. Pressure on the Park Service–including calls from several senators–got the decision reversed, and the bear arrived at Grizzly Park last week after being shipped by Federal Express from Alaska to Seattle. It was named Fred, in honor of FedEx chairman of the board Frederick Smith. To Robinson, saving the bear was an easy choice, especially since he got it for free: “Why would you rather have a bear killed than have what we have here?” he asks (and Denali Park officials agree). But to Servheen, it’s a “travesty,” showing people “an animal that looks like a bear” but has lost its wildness, and, therefore, its meaning. For the rest of us, it suggests a Faustian bargain between civilization and wilderness. We can have plenty of animals, but they’ll all be named after businessmen.
