Identifying wildlife by tracks in the snow brought to mind a hunting trip I took some years ago to the Sweetwater River country of Wyoming in search of Elk. The campground had signs warning of the possibility of encountering Grizzly Bears. In fact the Wyoming Game Department encouraged anyone who was in that country to buy bear bells. These were tiny bells that seemed to frighten the Grizzly Bear. If the hunter encountered a Grizzly Bear, he should shake the bear bells vigorously, thereby, hopefully, scaring away the Grizzly Bear.

The Game Department further encouraged the hunters to be especially alert for bear droppings and to carefully examine any bear droppings to determine if they were droppings of Grizzly Bear or Black Bear. The droppings of the Grizzly and the Black bear are almost indistinguishable but if you look very closely you find that the Grizzly Bear droppings have some very tiny bells in them. - Dave Rosenbaum