Ursa Major

On a Wednesday afternoon in the summer of 2016, thirty-eight-year-old U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer Brad Treat was biking with a friend near Half Moon Lakes in Flathead National Forest, just south of Glacier National Park, Montana, when he turned a sharp curve at twenty-five miles per hour and collided with a surprised adult grizzly bear. According to his companion, who sped away to get help, Treat went over the handlebars and was splayed out on the ground. When he returned, Treat was dead and his helmet had been bitten to pieces. He was the only person killed by a grizzly in North America in 2016. Typically, brown bears such as that kill an average of three people every year on the continent. His death, therefore, might have passed without much notice were it not for the fact he had been mountain biking at the time.

For the authorities who’ve worked on a plan to reintroduce grizzlies to Washington state’s North Cascades mountains, the attack