Shunning Sarah (7 page)

I mumbled something about us experimenting with shooting our own video.

“You mean one-man bands?” She rushed to tell the other stations the news. “Hey, everybody, Channel 3 is running one-man bands. Look at Riley Spartz.”

They all looked at me, torn between savoring my disgrace and fearing their own newsrooms might emulate the move. But one
of the other cameramen gave me a reassuring smile and helped me center the camera on my tripod head.

I was spared more razzing when a woman with gray braided hair arrived on the scene, shaking something yellow and pink in front of the cameras.

“Can everybody see this? Who can’t see this?” she called.

We stayed silent and let her rant a couple minutes, waiting to learn where this was leading. I kept my eye glued to the viewfinder, afraid she would walk out of frame and I’d miss something essential.

We’d been called there for a news conference about protecting black bears.

Turns out, like Noreen, Bryce believed animal stories attracted the most viewers. Apparently, a news director manifesto. Unlike my previous boss, Bryce had no pets of his own and no personal love for furry creatures. To him, they were business tools, good for audience share and ratings numbers. And generally, animal features were cheap to produce. So when the assignment desk mentioned a possible bear story, Bryce ordered me out the door.

“My name is Teresa Neuzil.” The woman worked for a nonprofit center for black bear research in northern Minnesota. “Do we want people who can’t see well enough to see this to be shooting guns?” She waved the colorful streamer again.

“What is that thing you’re holding?” I finally asked. I felt more normal asking questions than aiming the lens. The rest of the media pack seemed relieved to cut to the chase.

She walked over to me and held the item in front of my camera lens. The other photographers shifted their gear so they could also get the shot. “This is a bear radio collar. We use it to track research animals.”

Teresa drew our attention to the pink and yellow ribbons attached to the leather collar. “Even from a distance, these ribbons are quite noticeable.” Then she pointed out a dark stain on the collar. “Can anyone tell what this is?”

None of us answered. So she told us. “Blood.”

The word startled me. I found myself hoping news was near, even if an actual bear wasn’t.

Teresa waved a large photo of a black bear in one hand, the collar in the other. Her voice sounded choked up. “This was Ginny. The bear who wore this collar. Now presumed dead by a hunter’s bullet.”

The collar had been left in a mailbox outside the research station. No note. “This creature was one of our windows into the bear world.”

This wasn’t the first time such a misfortune had happened in her line of work. She’d lost five research bears to hunters over the last several years. Yet state wildlife officials refused her pleas to make hunting radio-collared bears illegal.

“That’s why I’ve driven hundreds of miles south to St. Paul to bring this recurring travesty to the attention of our state lawmakers,” Teresa said. “These research bears are not mere trophies. Their worth is more than a bearskin rug. They provide valuable knowledge to schools as well as scientists. Such a death sets our study back years.”

The North American Bear Center was familiar to me. Last year, a live online camera was placed in a den, letting viewers watch a hibernating bear give birth. The website had gone viral with Internet hits and the cub had become a cyberdarling.

“Is it possible that it’s hard to see the ribbons in dim light or deep brush?” the newspaper outdoors reporter asked. “Do we need to give hunters some slack here?”

The woman shook her head. “By law, deer hunters in the southern part of the state are required to count the points on a buck’s antlers before firing. This is much simpler.”

She shook the ribbons again. Close up, I could see they were made of fluorescent duct tape, well suited to survive north woods winters.

“Also,” Teresa continued, “most bear-hunting parties use bait
to attract their prey, giving them ample opportunity to see the bears before pulling a trigger or releasing an arrow.”

She described how the bear center was dedicated to clearing up misconceptions regarding scientific facts about bears.

“People are the number one cause of death of black bears, yet our bear center is not opposed to hunting. In fact, our work helps manage bear populations. And hunters benefit from that data. But there are more than twenty thousand black bears in Minnesota. Surely we can spare a dozen.”

The closest I’d ever been to hunting animals was flushing pheasants out of cornfields as a child so my dad could shoot them. So while I’m not opposed to the sport, it made sense that the killing of these tagged bears should end.

“What is your next move?” I asked. “What do you hope to accomplish here today?”

“We’ve asked state wildlife officials for their support, but failed to get it,” Teresa said. “Now I’m asking the citizens of Minnesota to implore their lawmakers to make killing research bears illegal.”

All in all, her speech seemed like fine campaign rhetoric. I wondered why state wildlife officials rejected her proposal. So after the news conference ended, I drove about a mile to the Department of Natural Resources headquarters to find out.

I’m not a particularly outdoorsy news type, so the last time I’d spoken with the DNR was a year earlier after a burglary in one of their storage buildings. The break-in wouldn’t have attracted any attention except the thieves stole twenty animal head mounts from a traveling Wall of Shame display designed to encourage the public to report poachers. The haul included trophy bucks, a large walleye, turkey tail feathers, even a bear head.

Their communications director, Zach Loecher, was miffed when he heard about the crusade at the Capitol minutes earlier. “This is an issue with a lot of public emotion behind it. Not nearly as clear cut as the bear center is making it seem.” Then he
wondered out loud why no other media were pressing him for answers.

“My guess is Channel 3 must be the only one that cares about getting both sides of the story,” I said.

But it actually crossed my mind that the other reporters might be dismissing the event as nonnews. The dead-bear tale fell into the category of discretionary news. It certainly wasn’t mandatory for coverage, except on a real slow news day. So the other newsrooms in town could be passing, simply phoning the DNR for a comment to include in the story tag, or have a much better story Channel 3 was missing.

But hunting research bears certainly could be made into an interesting
issue
story. That’s what I was hoping for, so I wanted to interview Loecher on camera before it occurred to him that keeping quiet might make his problem go away.

He got back to the matter concerning the bear center. “It isn’t that they love bears and we hate them. Our agency has to deal with a bigger picture.”

“I have no doubt Mother Nature can be complicated,” I said. “Let’s put you on camera to make sure we get it right.”

Loecher’s office had nice natural light, so all I had to do was clip a microphone onto his shirt. I considered starting out smart alecky and asking what he had against black bears, but decided to simply play it straight so I could leave promptly with a usable sound bite.

“What’s the downside of making it illegal to hunt research bears?” I asked.

He knew his material and made his argument. “While we believe such research to be popular and interesting, we do not believe it essential to managing bear populations.”

He pointed out that the DNR also uses radio collars to study bears and also loses some of those animals each year to what he called “legal harvest” by hunters.

“Such is the circle of life,” Loecher said. “Our policy is to request
that hunters voluntarily refrain from shooting such bears, but in the case of such a kill, we do not believe it would be easy to prove the hunter could tell the bear was marked, especially since so many bears are taken at dawn or dusk.”

On my way out, I stopped by a black bear display in the front lobby. The furry creature had been mounted on its hind feet, leaning against a tree stump. The head wasn’t much taller than my own, which surprised me. We could almost see eye to eye.

It seemed the perfect place for a stand-up. With the toe of my shoe I marked a location on the floor that seemed the right position for me to speak. Then I set up the tripod and camera, hit Record, and rushed to that spot.

((STANDUP))

UNDER CURRENT STATE LAW,

RESEARCH BEARS ARE “FAIR

GAME” FOR HUNTERS AND COULD

END UP LIKE THIS TROPHY.

I rewound the tape to double-check my standup and found that my head cropped off at the nose. All that could be seen of my face was my mouth talking. The stuffed bear in the background was barely visible.

I tried again, pulling wider with the shot. This time I clipped one ear and arm, but at least the bear was discernible.

The news desk called then, ordering me back to the station because one of the evening shift photographers needed the camera.

“I really need to shoot another version of my standup,” I said. “I’m having a hard time centering.”

“Then write a set piece instead of a standup.” Set pieces are used with limited video stories; the reporter sits on the news set for most of the story. They are often dull.

I used the standup anyway, the one with the clipped arm and
ear, because I thought the shot would demonstrate the futility of one-man bands. That wasn’t the only video problem. When Teresa waved the bear color ribbons, the focus blurred. Her audio was a little scratchy because I’d forgotten to use the wireless mic. And the color on the DNR guy’s face was washed out.

Instead of calling a halt to the trial, or at least giving me more training, Bryce dubbed the mistakes “artistic.” He assured me that soon I’d be as comfortable behind the camera as I was in front of it.

As for the bear story: my boss loved it. “I see it as controversial, not complicated.” And we both knew that while many institutions view controversy as a negative, newsrooms welcome brouhaha. We tell ourselves that it’s proof of free speech, but we know it also breeds buzz.

The station ran a link to the bear center’s website so members of the public could sign a cyberpetition supporting the legal protection of radio-collared bears.

T
he morning sky was darker longer as we moved deeper into fall, so I couldn’t count on the sun to wake me. After silencing my alarm, I reached for the TV remote and turned on the news before lifting my head from the pillow.

I liked making sure nothing wild had happened overnight before I faced the day. The morning anchors read the news on a set in front of a window overlooking the streets of downtown Minneapolis. Viewers could see weather and city buses in the background. But today, all you could see were protesters whose signs read Hunters Have Rights and Bears Are Fair Game.

I scrambled to turn up the volume. The anchor introduced one of the protesters for a live through-the-box interview about radio-collared bears.

((ANCHOR, DOUBLE BOX))

SEEMS LIKE THERE ARE MORE

THAN ENOUGH BEARS IN

MINNESOTA THAT WE COULD

SPARE SOME FOR RESEARCH …

WHY SUCH STRONG OPPOSITION?

((PROTESTER CU))

GETTING SHOT IS ONE WAY

ANIMALS DIE. IT’S A LEGITIMATE

PART OF THE BEAR RESEARCH

AND THEY NEED TO ACCEPT THAT

OUTCOME.

((ANCHOR DOUBLE BOX))

YOU SOUND QUITE PASSIONATE

ABOUT ALLOWING HUNTERS TO

KILL THESE MARKED ANIMALS.

((PROTESTER CU))

WE NEED TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS

OF HUNTERS. ANTIHUNTING

GROUPS ARE BEHIND THIS. AND IF

WE GIVE IN HERE, PRETTY SOON

THEY’LL BE PUTTING COLLARS AND

RIBBONS ON DEER AND WOLVES

AND ALL WILD ANIMALS JUST TO

END THE SPORT OF HUNTING.

The debate was provocative. And the story tagged out with a mention that this particular hunting group had started its own online petition to continue the “legal harvest” of radio-collared black bears. Channel 3, in the interests of fairness—and controversy—also made that link available to our viewers.

•   •   •

Husky needed a morning stretch. Or maybe I did. My newly acquired dog actually didn’t like going out any longer than necessary to do his doggy business, but I enjoyed his company on the street and thought I looked less lonely with him on a leash. That didn’t mean I wasn’t lonely. Or that he wasn’t lonely. We both had a lot of people missing from our lives—some dead, some behind bars, some just far away.

“Come on, boy.” We both started running through the neighborhood. Husky was a hand-me-down dog. First he belonged to Toby Elness, an imprisoned animal activist. Then Noreen Banks, his ex-wife and my deceased boss, took custody. Now me.

Even in my current rough patch, my life was better than most—especially with a ball of fur by my side.

I dwelled again on how lucky I was to find a TV news job in a market near my childhood stomping ground. Old teachers tell me they watch me on the news. People come up to me on the street and tell me they know my parents or they used to babysit me.

I’d done some checking on Bryce through the TV news grapevine and Channel 3 was his fourth station. When journalists aren’t chasing news, we’re chasing gossip. But oddly, Bryce was the guy nobody wanted to talk about.

T
he bear story ended up being one of those instances where covering news makes more news.

By midmorning, just over two hundred people had put their names on the petition supporting the hunting of radio-collared bears. But for the opposition, more than five thousand signatures sided with safeguarding research bears and two lawmakers were already vowing to sponsor such legislation.

Two major hunting organizations were distancing themselves from the morning extremists and taking a more mainstream political approach using lobbyists rather than protesters.