OPINION: A tribute to Dr. Chuck Jonkel

The highly intelligent, much esteemed by everyone who knew him or heard of him, renowned worldwide, Dr. Chuck Jonkel, of grizzly bear and polar bear behavioral scientific research fame and advocate for their survival, passed away April 12 in Missoula, at age 85.  

The Daily Inter Lake newspaper published a front page tribute to Chuck about his biographical exploits, so I will only discuss my personal relationship with this great man.

I first met Dr. Jonkel while I was still living in Colorado near Rocky Mountain National Park where I frequently hiked and skied and horseback rode. But Rocky Mountain National Park did not have grizzly bears so I often drove to Glacier National Park for my vacations in order to view and study them under Chuck’s guidance.  

I eventually took very early retirement from my aerospace engineering career in Colorado to move near Glacier and continue my studies on my own, unpaid, and do all I could to save the great bear from the ravages of being under the control of the U.S. Forest Service and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Flathead National Forest with their political mission of protecting people from them, and attempting to delist them from the protection of the Endangered Species List, so they could be trophy-hunted in their natural protected forest habitat and harvest the trees, at the very risk of their survival as a species. That is government at its very worst.

During that time span of 1970s until today, I was able to go on numerous 13-hour treks into grizzly bear habitat with Chuck, “the best friend of the grizzly,” so he could teach me about grizzly omnivore food sources that a human could also eat, behavioral characteristics, defense of their young, hibernation, and inspire me to dedicate myself to their survival. I will be eternally grateful to Chuck for spending time with me and teaching me. It was a momentous change to my life.

I had previously met Drs. John and Frank Craighead who, along with Dr. Chuck Jonkel, were the first wildlife biologists to dedicate their lives to studying grizzly bears beginning in the early 1970s. Since moving here 15 years ago, I also met Brian Peck, a transplanted Colorado park ranger with a master’s degree in wildlife biology, who moved here before me, and am fortunate to now study under him as the next “best friend of the grizzly.”

If Chuck can hear me, thank you for all you did to transform my life, and I look forward to seeing you again on “the other side.”

Baum is a resident of Martin City.