Ed Bangs, who for 23 years led the effort to reintroduce and recover healthy wolf populations in the northern Rocky Mountains, retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I had many conversations about Wolf recovery over the years with Ed and the last time I talked to him I asked him if he would be willing to share some hunting stories with all of us. Here he is with a tale from Rasberry Island in Alaska. “One time we were on Raspberry Island hunting and a friend of mine shot a deer in the neck and it ran by me and I shot it in the other end and it ran off bleeding pretty good and so I was trailing it, he was behind me, and then I hear some brush crashing up in front of me and I thought it was a deer falling down and my buddy yells out, he’s probably a couple of hundred yards behind me, and he yells Ed there’s a bear up there and I say no big deal. Pretty soon he yells again hey Ed it’s coming toward you you probably ought to get out of there. I tried down this hill just trying to get away and I yell out Chris where is the bear. Then I turned behind me and there is this brown bear 20 yards from me and coming like a rocket. I threw my bow away because you don’t want to fall on your arrows and I had a pistol. So I cocked it and locked it and all of a sudden the bear realized I was a person not a dear and jammed on the brakes. After he left my friend came running up and said Ed I thought you were toast.