Most people don't know this, but I spent over a year as a bear when I was a kid. Other than my mom and whoever bothers to read this journal, everyone thinks I'm just some lucky 22 year old who happened to come up with the idea for one of the most useful apps for nature lovers everywhere. Well, I suppose I am lucky in some ways, but my idea certainly didn't come out of nowhere.

For those of you who don't know, I helped develop Nature Smart, an app which contains all sorts of information about animal behavior and tips about how to conduct safe camping trips. Right now, the animal behavior section primarily focuses on large carnivorous mammals, but my team and I are constantly adding new facts about various species.

How did I come up with this idea?

There are two things that inspired it.

My father died when I was 8 because he was mauled to death by a mother bear. He and the rangers with him were so distracted by their conversation that they failed to notice a mother bear and her two cubs until the grizzlies were already frightened. If they had been more careful and remained aware of their surroundings or if they had thought clearly enough to have reacted to the bear's defensive behavior properly, then my father might have escaped unharmed.

My experiences living as a bear also helped me come up with the idea because I got a better idea of how bears communicated. You see, bears communicate very differently than we do. They rely on scents a lot and, while they do use some visual and auditory signals to communicate, many of the cues they uses aren't obvious to people. 

Other than growling showing that a bear is (obviously) angry, people generally aren't able to understand what bears try to tell them. 

Because of that, many people fail to heed warnings that should be obvious. This leads to many close calls and, unfortunately, some deaths every year. 

This isn't just a bear related issue either. Wolves, cougars, and countless other animals are involved. People just don't understand what other species try to tell them.

To solve this problem, I developed a database of animal behavior that is one of the main features of Nature Smart. By looking up a particular species, people can read about how to avoid agitating the animals and what to do if the animal does become scared and/or aggressive. The app is primarily meant to prevent people from getting into such dangerous situations to begin with, but it can be used in a pinch to minimize the chance of injury and/or death in aggressive encounters.

For example, let's say you want to go hiking in an area where grizzly bears have been seen from time to time. Instead of going in ignorant and potentially risking your safety, you can look up grizzly bears on the app to learn more about their behavior.

To avoid them, you'll want to avoid areas they might frequent such as rivers and areas with plentiful big game herbivores such as deer. You should also make sure to avoid poor camping practices such as cooking particularly smelly foods, especially meat, that could attract bears.

As you hike, make sure to make a good amount of noise. Bears aren't as likely to be aggressive if they know where you are. A surprised bear is a scared, angry bear.

If you do come across a grizzly, keep an eye out for threat displays. Grizzlies will often click their teeth together to show that they are willing to fight. Identify whether the grizzly appears to be aggressive or just curious. If it is aggressive, you will likely have to scare it off somehow (bear spray, something you should always have while hiking, works well for this); if it is curious, back away slowly while facing the bear and speak calmly to it to show that you are not a threat.

That's just one example of the information you can find on my app. Our database is constantly growing. We currently have information about the behavior of over 50 potentially dangerous species.

This info doesn't just benefit people. By helping people learn to recognize aggressive behavior and how to react, my app has helped reduced the rate of animal attacks. In doing so, less animals have been put down for violent behavior and more people have become interested in donating to conservation efforts since my app is spreading awareness about how we can better coexist with various species.

As I previously mentioned, Nature Smart also has a wide variety of tips to help people with different outdoors activities, particularly camping. It has information about everything from what to bring in order to be prepared for all of the fun and hardships nature simultaneously offers to edible plants you can search for in different areas (this is especially useful if you happen to get lost or lose your food supplies somehow).

This feature helps people stay safe while they explore the great outdoors. As you know, many people get lost, suffer horrible accidents, or simply forget to bring necessary items and need to cut their camping trips short due to their lack of knowledge about the areas they decide to camp in and about camping practices in general. By helping people stay safe and have fun, this part of the app aims to teach people how to better coexist with and appreciate nature.

Each year, tens of thousands of square miles of forest are cut down, leaving landscapes barren and thousands of animals without homes. As you can imagine, this puts many species in danger of extinction. On top of that, many animals are killed each year because they were falsely believed to be attacking humans for no good reason when they were actually provoked, albeit inadvertently.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you what that did to my family or Orson's.

By teaching people more about animals and nature in general, I hope to help humans learn to understand other animals better and for them to become more interested in the welfare of the species we share this planet with before it's too late.

I created Nature Smart to keep us safe from nature and to keep nature safe from us.