(Do not) feed the bears: Policy, culture, and the historical narrative of the Yellowstone bear (Wyoming, Idaho, Montana)

As one of Yellowstone's most beloved and enduring symbols, the bear has served as a flashpoint not only for controversies related to the park's evolving policy of ecosystem management, but also for issues of touristic desire and satisfaction with the National Park system. As policy has changed, so have the narratives, or stories told by the NPS in order to explain and promote its policies and itself, e.g., through park literature and correspondence, law enforcement, and changes in the landscape.; In this research, I use the Yellowstone bear as a catalyst through which to examine the relationships between park policies and interpretation, and public reception, and situate the development of these relationships within the broader contexts of environmental history and cultural change. In conclusion, I investigate the success of park narratives and look for opportunities for improved park interpretation. Through archival documents and key informant interviews, I produce an analysis which fills an existing gap in park literature and provide park managers with concrete data which can be used to develop interpretive and educational strategies which are based in a solid understanding of the diverse forces and cultural currents which work in favor of the NPS and its mission, as well as against it.; Results indicate that management and narrative do not only come from the top down, but are the result of a dialectic between policy, cultural waves and visitors. Since the turn of the 20th century, the narrative of the Yellowstone bear and its related ways of seeing bears have Changes are reflective of shifting policies and attitudes toward nature more generally. These changes have required evolving ways of seeing on the part of Yellowstone's Visitors. The work is significant because it provides a heretofore absent record of visitor history, bear management and its ephemera, and contemporary social science in Yellowstone relative to the issues named above, and demonstrates that the history of bear management in Yellowstone and the motivations behind it are more complex than some other scholars have led the public to believe.