Bear

A bear is a nasty creature, hunting through garbage, chasing your pet dog, but mostly cavorting through the woods ready to slice your throat soon as look at you. Granted, not all bear varieties are quite that nasty, especially black bears that are essentially big deer with sharp teeth. Grizzlies, however, are as mean as they come, and polar bears, despite their cute and cuddly reputation via the Coca Cola advertising campaigns, will eat your child on the way to school if provided the opportunity.

Glen studied the grizzlies for his PhD, following a trio of males who had all been darted, tagged, and released. Each had a GPS tracker embedded in the skin under his ear so that several students and rangers could follow their patterns. Glen's favourite of the three was specimen 23A8LBT, affectionately referred to as Labert, or Bert for short.

Bert had no Ernie, for grizzlies are solitary creatures. His primary den was situated below two overhangs, and in between two spruce, making it relatively dry, sheltered from the wind, and easy to defend. Glen had never visited the site in person, for that was a risk no human would make. Instead, he studied it via a variety of satellite images, not only less adventurous, but also woefully inadequate. If Glen didn't have a partner, Johnny, waiting back home every night, he would have taken the risk and visited Bert's place during one of the helicopter treks.

Ah to be young and have nothing to lose.