An important lesson in a young grizzly cubs life is the art of snarling. There is an etiquette to it. A time and place where it is acceptable behavior, and first and foremost, the actual act of snarling itself. How to hold your mouth, what kind of stance you should take, the volume, intent, sincerity, all these things have to be learned, then practiced endlessly until perfected.

This cub has just been informed that it is soon going to be nap time and like all kids he doesn’t need a nap. He’s not sleepy and definitely wants to stay up, winter or no winter. Mom says you’re going to take a nap whether you want to or not. Mother grizzlies do not have long conversations with their young about what she wants them to do. There is none of this convincing stuff, or cajoling, or offering to take them to Wally world if they’re good and take their naps like good little grizzlies. She just gives them a swat, picks them up in her mouth and stuffs them in the den. The “don’t come out or you’ll really get it” is understood.

But this is a young grizzly and some defiance is not only understood but expected otherwise it wouldn’t be a grizzly, it’d be like a black bear. No, no, no, not that, not like a black bear, defiance is definitely called for. So drawing on the limited knowledge of snarling etiquette the young bear moves the proper distance away from mom which is the swiping range of that big front paw, turns its head slightly to the left and emits a low growl and forms the proper mouth position. This is not the equivalent of a full-blown, foot-stamping, screaming in the aisles, tearing open the candy bag, type of snarl. That would get it a shot across the snout that would knock it half silly. This is the “I don’t want to go to bed yet” snarl. It’s been done well, mom pretends she didn’t hear it and the youngster has just completed his first successful snarl.

It’s feeling pretty good about things right now so it wanders off to snarl and growl at the grass and the opening to the ground squirrels hole, and it’s really wishing a magpie or even a raven would come by so it could really give them a good snarl. It would go up the hill a little to give those boulders what for too, but actually it’s feeling a little sleepy and mom is digging up that ground squirrel and maybe it will just go down there and lay down and watch her. Just for a minute. Not to take a nap. Just to rest a minute. Then it’ll get up and really snarl a bunch.