Home » Hobbies & Leisure » Bears at Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in MT have jobs: try to open coolers/dumpsters/containers of treats. If bears can’t make more than a tiny hole, the item is certified bear-proof. The GWDC is the only place where products can earn a certificate from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.

Bears at Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in MT have jobs: try to open coolers/dumpsters/containers of treats. If bears can’t make more than a tiny hole, the item is certified bear-proof. The GWDC is the only place where products can earn a certificate from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.

These Bears Have a Job, and It’s Destroying Coolers

When I was 23, I spent a summer working as a counselor at an overnight camp for eight-to-12-year-olds near the central mountain town of Genesee, Colorado. After a stern talking-to about what might happen if anyone went to bed with a snack in their sleeping bags—bears, people!—we’d zip the kids into their tents for the night, lock up the cabin containing our kitchen, and try to catch a few hours of sleep.

One morning around 5:30, after a particularly long night of comforting tearful, homesick tweens, I dragged myself into the kitchen for coffee. Two other counselors were already there, surveying the wreckage: a broken window, boxes of food strewn across the linoleum floor, burst bags of hot cocoa mix, and a maze of chocolaty paw prints. … Continue Reading (7 minute read)

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