Tough Griz Caption Contest

Here's a photo begging for a caption contest: A big grizzly in Yellowstone National Park standing guard over a dead bison, mean-mugging National Park Service biologist Doug Smith--who's flying overhead in an airplane. Smith took the picture while studying a wolfpack in Hayden Valley--more of his amazing work here. Just outside of camera range in this photo, Smith says, is the wolf pack, waiting for its turn at the carcass.

Coincidentally, San Francisco public radio station KQED's "Perspective" series this morning featured a commentary by office worker Fred Etheridge who describes the same wild, challenging stare as is given by this grizzly--only by a Cooper's hawk that had caught a pigeon right outside his window. You can listen here, and leave your captions for the grizzly photo in the comments.

Photo by Doug Smith/NPS

PAUL RAUBER is a senior editor at Sierra. He is the author, with Carl Pope, of the happily outdated Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress. Otherwise he is a cyclist, cook, and father of two. Follow him on Twitter @paulrauber.