The Goldilocks Project

Ranger Goldilocks
and the Three Ursus arctos horribilus.

by Pamela Larson

Once upon a time, in a mixed conifer forest, there lived three grizzly bears, or Ursus arctos horribilus (a subspecies of the brown bear.) There was a Papa bear, who because of sexual dimorphism weighed 1.8 times more than Mama bear. There was a Mama bear, who had a radio collar and an ear tag, and a Baby bear, who was just born last winter, and still dependent on Mama bear. One day Papa bear, who was always hungry, found a campsite where the campers didn't bother to use the bear-proof food barrels, and just left their food in the trunk of their car while they went hiking. It took him thirty seconds to break the back window and rip open the back seat cushion to get to the oatmeal packets. Mama bear came along and chased Papa bear off (since Papa bears aren't trustworthy around Baby bears). She stood on one of the camp chairs to get the garbage bag tied to the tree, and pulled it down before the aluminum poles of the chair bent like spaghetti. Baby bear pulled open the door to the trailer and after eating all the marsh-mellows, crawled into the bed and fell asleep.

Pretty soon, the campers came back and found their campsite a wreck. They called Ranger Goldilocks who rushed over to see what the matter was.

Somebody's been eating my porridge! said the first angry camper.
Somebody's been sitting in my chair! said the second angry camper.
Somebody's been sleeping in my bed! said the third angry camper and they are still in there snoring!

Ranger Goldilocks saw Mama bear finishing up last night's tinfoil dinners, and told the three angry campers to get in the ranger truck. She got out her tranquilizer gun, shot Mama bear, and got a sack over baby bear. A helicopter came and translocated Mama bear and Baby bear far away from the three angry campers.

Ranger Goldilocks then gave the three angry campers a ticket, and told them to clean up their campsite before Papa Bear became habituated to eating human food, and had to be put down.