Many of you commented on my posts about the bears last month. Well, here's the very sad update. She had been trapped and relocated twice, but bears are like homing pigeons. This one, as the article explains, was starting to argue with human rivals (no doubt that's how she saw them), as I described in my Bear Hunt post. It's just normal behavior, really -- humans have food that's very attractive to bears, the bear tries to get it, the humans defend their food.... if it were another bear defending food, there'd be a fight. It's too bad the humans weren't more discreet about the stewardship of their food. But they haven't been, and the bear was becoming more than a nuisance, she was a potential threat. I hate this. The three cubs are old enough to forage but not really old enough to hunt. And guess where they've learned from their mother to forage? I see more trouble coming.
However....
The deer couple pictured in my last post have been nibbling greenery just outside my picture window for the last 5 minutes or so. I don't have another picture but I've been watching them. The buck is a nice 8-pointer, still in velvet. I'm not a hunter and I hate to think of him getting shot; my son, for example, would be thrilled with him, and he'd provide a great deal of nutritious, delicious meat. And it is a truth of nature that deer are so abundant in this area and the winters so long and severe that, if all the deer were allowed to enter it and compete for the available ramaining food, many would die a slow, miserable death before spring.
I have these conflicts: I love the deer but realize their utility to humans, and humans' utility in sparing the deer from starvation. I love the bears but realize their potential for causing human injury and death (and injury or death to my cat.) And although I'll catch a spider on a piece of paper and put it outside rather than kill it, I don't hesitate to kill wasps, because their sting makes my heart pound, and makes me itch and swell and breathe hard and get dizzy. Doc gave me an EpiPen but I'm not going to let a nearby wasp live, and hope the EpiPen works if I get stung.
Oops, there they both go, running "deer-like" through the meadow down the hill. Someone must have spooked them. How beautiful they are on the run.
1 comment:
I know. I feel the same way. They are so precious but they are extremely large in number and are endangering other species. Sigh. Nothing is black and white. Just as long as they are treated with dignity and repsect and feel no pain or fear.
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