Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Bears for Big Basin?

 In 1935, the then president of the San Lorenzo Valley Chamber of Commerce, Frank Pimentel, investigated introducing bears into the park "to amuse the visitors, as they do in Yosemite." 

Pimentel was authorized by the Chamber to appoint a committee to assess the "desirability and feasibility of acquiring a few surplus bears from Yosemite and planting them in the vicinity if Governors' Camp in the Big Basin." 

Pimentel realized he should probably consult park warden Fred Moody first. He reflected; "Maybe the bear and the deer wouldn't get along well together."

"Bear?" questioned Warden Moody. "They tried to go nudist up here last summer. I wouldn't want 'em any more bear."

However, the project was quickly nixed when the wives of the directors of the San Lorenzo Valley boosters pointed out that no women would want to pick huckleberries if she might meet a bear doing the same. "And the husbands like huckleberry pie."

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