There's been a real change in the way the National Park Service treats grizzly bears, at least here in the lower 48. Alaska has more bears and different problems, which Mike has alluded to. Up until the early/mid '70s, people would sit on bleachers near one of the hotels in Yellowstone National Park and watch the park rangers feed the bears all the garbage from the park's restaurants. Then, someone "saw the light" and decided that feeding wild animals human trash as a tourist attraction was maybe not such a good idea. But instead of thinking through a plan for weaning the bears away from their garbage feasts, they stopped the daily feedings cold turkey. Two things happened: 1) the grizzly population in the park crashed, because the bears had grown unaccustomed to finding their own food and starved to death and 2) "nuisance" bears--i.e. bears who rooted around in trash cans and hung around near humans because they were used to being fed--suddenly became a problem in the park. Now, the grizzly bear population in Yellowstone is back, but certainly still threatened. We humans are so damn smart...