With some distress, I was to later hear that the blond Black Bear in Yosemite that had provided one of my most memorable encounters of this entire trip was euthanized just days later. Seventeen years old and a long-term resident of the Glacier Point area, the powers that be decided she had indeed become a ‘problem bear’, that she was becoming emboldened and potentially a threat to human health.

My photographs are the last ever to be taken of her. Visitors to Yosemite are told time after time not to leave food in view, not to leave windows open. And yet a minority still do. They, not the bear, are the guilty parties. To them, an epitaph for this fine bear should be inscribed ‘You came, you killed'.

A total of 62 mammals were recorded on the trip from southern California to northern Alaska, this including 40 species in California and 27 in Alaska. Of these, three were only seen as road kills (North American Porcupine, American Marten and Striped Skunk) and one only recorded through the presence of signs (American Beaver).