Explaining a bear attack is never easy

Always after a bear kills, there is a search for explanation. When poor Darcy Staver was knocked off the roof of a cabin near Glennallen and killed by a black bear years back, every possible wild theory emerged.

There were rumors the cabin was stuffed with fresh salmon that she and her husband had been cleaning. There were accusations that her husband, who went for help after the bear broke through a window and chased them out of the cabin and onto the roof, left because he wanted her dead. There were even accusations that she been murdered.

Not a shred of truth existed to support any of these stories, but they grew anyway. In fact, in doing a quick Google search to check the spelling of Staver's name, there even appeared a story about how she had been murdered by her husband who is now reportedly "serving a life sentence for first-degree murder.''

Is someone really foolish enough to believe the Alaska media, and all of Glennallen would have missed his arrest, his trial and his sentencing, given Staver's death was news all across the 49th state for weeks after the bear attack?

Why did it attract so much attention? Because, in the first place, deadly bear attacks are among the rarest stories in the country. People are rarely attacked by bears, and when they are, they generally live. Dogs each year maul to death far more Americans than bears.

Dogs that kill are quickly dismissed as "vicious.'' But since bears have no reputation for viciousness, although they live very violent lives in nature, everyone wants an explanation for any aberrant behavior toward humans. It is hard for most to accept that nature is, in significant part, a string of random events.

The Judeo-Christian system of belief, a fundamental underpinning in this country, is indeed built on the idea that what happens, at least to humans, isn't random. It's all part of "God's plan," which can be a hard plan to fathom when bears start acting like people.

People, we all know, generally mind their own business. Most of them want no trouble. Most of them abide by agreed upon laws. Most of them are friendly. But sometimes there is that one who snaps -- the one next store who was "always so quiet, never bothered anybody, kept to itself'' -- until he goes on a killing rampage.

Psychiatrists still can't figure out why some of them do what they do, though sometimes we get reasons which aren't really reasons: rage, anger, jealousy. Who hasn't experienced those emotions? Most of us, thankfully, don't kill for them.

But then often when people kill there is no good reason. It is likely the same for bears. We just have a hard time accepting it because finding a reason for a bear attack makes us all more comfortable in our self-created cocoons of safety.

It can't happen to me because: I don't put food in my tent; I wear a bell when hiking; I stay off Rover's Run Trail when the authorities tell me to do that; I'm nice to the bears so they'll be nice to me; I avoid trails in the mornings and evenings when most bears are out, etc., etc., etc.

Some of those things make a bit of sense. Some don't. The bears really don't give a hoot whether you want to be nice to them or want to

kill them, and there's no evidence that bells do anything to protect you. But people believe these things because they need to believe something other than that well, for lack better words, that sometimes crap just happens.

It happened big time earlier this month. A grizzly bear with three cubs invaded a campground in Montana and began the nightmare scenario of ripping through tents looking for people to eat. She killed one and seriously injured two.

Now, as usual, the search is on for reasons, and there is this from the news wires:

Authorities are still looking into the possibility that a photographer may be to blame for last week's deadly bear attack at a Cooke City campground near Yellowstone National Park. There have been claims that a photographer put out food in hopes of getting better shots of wildlife.