Wetass Job #26–Bear Bouncing: So it’s come to this. There are so many humans tempting so many bears with junk food in our national parks that the National Park Service needs to employ some seriously crazy mofos to keep them all apart. Here’s what happens, according to a whimsical report in the LA Times, when a bear bouncer like Joe Yarkovich is called into action by a camper cowering over a nearby bear:

“It’s very technical,” he likes to explain when the whimpering campers approach. Then Yarkovich, 28 years old, head shaved, weighing in at 175 pounds, starts in with the tough love. He sprints full tilt at a black bear about his size, screaming, “Hey bear! Get going! Get outta here!” and maybe blasting the animal’s face with pepper spray. Hazing, they call it…

In the back of the truck lie the night-vision goggles, the shotgun and rubber bullets, telemetry instruments, slingshot and pepper balls. On his belt, Yarkovich wears a Mag-Lite and a canister of pepper spray.

This is Yogi and Boo Boo versus The Man, and it would make a great reality TV show (cue Cops music: “Bad bear, bad bear! Whatcha gonna do?”) because it turns out that the bears are pretty damn smart (learning how to use their tongues, for instance, as a third hand to open up supposedly bear-proof food storage boxes; and shedding their radio tracking collars) and campers are incredibly stupid (putting out food because they want to see bears up close, and then screaming for help once they discover that bears are, well, scary). I see Hulk Hogan in a starring role…



“Ummm. Great garbage tonight. But I’d better not eat too much in case that loud, wrinkly blonde guy in tights tries to piledrive me again…”