Democracy Now was recorded in Bozeman, Montana yesterday. Bozeman is just outside Yellowstone National Park. Bozeman was where we’d drive for groceries and other supplies when I was volunteering with the Buffalo Field Campaign, so I consider it one of my many home towns. It’s also where I saw Micheal Franti and Spearhead. That was the Yell Fire! tour, and the drum kit for that show had a bison on it, and all the t-shirts and other things for sale there had bison on them. So us buffalo hippies in attendance had a magnificent time.
Anyway, so Doug Peacock was on Democracy Now yesterday. I met Doug Peacock one day while tabling for the Buffalo Field Campaign in Yellowstone. He came by, shook my hend and said to say hi to Mike (BFC co-ordinator). When he said his name my mouth dropped open and I was stunned speechless. Not only was Doug Peacock the inspiration for Hayduke, a character in Edward Abbey’s Monkeywrench Gang, (Ed Abbey being a looming figure in the eco-defence mythos) but he knows more about grizzly bears than anyone else in the world. When I’m in grizzly country up here in BC, telling people what to do if they encounter a grizzly, I tell them that Doug Peacock has been charged by grizzly almost 30 times, and never attacked. Which is not to say many of us would be able to stay calm and call a bear’s bluff. I would just as likely panic and get mauled, but I would like to think I could be like Peacock, avoid eye contact and live to brag.
Anyway, as always, I urge you to learn about the situation facing critters like the buffalo, the bears, the elk, the wolves and others in the Yellowstone area. So watch this link please, of the interview with the Doug and Andrea Peacock.
And then watch this film about Ed Abbey, in which he defends monkeywrenching.
Filed under: Bison, Wildlife in trouble, activism, animal rights, bears, international
