This skin is draped over a chair at the entry to a local restaurant. It is a hunter’s trophy, a reminder that man often will take from nature whatever he wants. I stress the bear’s fierce expression, mouth wide open, displaying its dangerous teeth. Yet the bear is mute and powerless here, strapped on to the back of a bench as an ornament in a restaurant. It no doubt is intended remind visiting tourists that they are at the edge of Olympic National Park, where creatures such as this are still free to roam. But for some, this shell of a bear, lashed in death upon a hard bench, will underscore the precarious state of the environment as a whole.