[or-roots] Cougars...

[cjp joppe]

well put! 

--- CKlooster at aol.com wrote:

> Among the bits of wisdom given me by my mother was
> "Bears are more afraid  of 
> you than you are of them.". My mother had never met
> an Alaskan bear.   
> Bears...and I include both black bears and brown
> (grizzly) bears...are not  afraid 
> of anything.  That being the case, nobody in this
> Yukon  River community goes 
> out of the village proper without a gun.  Berry 
> picking is particularly risky 
> since people and bears are both fond of the berry 
> patch; when berry picking, 
> most people take a designated gunner to keep  watch.
>  Still, in close to 
> thirty years here, I know of no people in this  area
> injured by bears or wolves.
>  
> People in the US seem increasingly to expect a world
>   without danger or 
> risk...so much so that some people are willing to
> give up  privacy, basic civil 
> rights and freedom for the illusion of safety and 
> security.  We expect our 
> children to be born healthy and to grow to 
> adulthood; our grandparents had no 
> such illusions.  We expect illness to be  curable
> with antibiotics or other 
> pharmaceuticals; our grandparents sat anxious  vigil
> with herbs and patent 
> medicines as the only help for sick relatives. We 
> expect our countryside to be free 
> of dangerous wild animals and we expect to be  old
> when we die. I believe that 
> when future generations (assuming there are  any)
> look back at this time, they 
> will regard it as a time of great  naivety.  We're
> running out of antibiotics 
> effective against resistant  pathogens; many of this
> generation have immune 
> systems unchallenged by serious  virus or bacteria
> infection.  As recently 
> demonstrated in Great Britain,  security cameras can
> only tell you who blew up the 
> underground, small  consolation to those who were
> injured or to the families 
> of those who  died. We may shortly participate in a
> pandemic...if not the bird 
> flu,  then another variant.  Our climate is changing
> rapidly and with  
> extreme weather results.  In short, this is not now,
> nor has it ever been a  safe 
> world and harboring the assumption of safety is
> actually pretty  detrimental to 
> our survival.
>  
> Cougars, bears, wolves, and humans are all "top of
> the food chain"  
> predators.  Yet, since the turn of the last century
> there have been less  than two 
> hundred reported attacks on humans by cougars and
> wolves.   Contrast that with the 
> more than 30,000 deaths resulting from automobile 
> accidents each year.  I 
> believe that many of the encounters and subsequent 
> attacks on humans by 
> predators are a result of a lack of human vigilance;
> people  strolling through the 
> countryside without paying particular attention to 
> potential danger. I don't 
> regard wild animals as fuzzy would-be pets, but I 
> would not want to live in a 
> world in which cougars and bears and wolves have no 
> place.  I think the key is 
> vigilance and respect.
>  
> And that's my soap box.
>  
> Carla
>  
> 


carole
cjpjoppe at yahoo.com
... unwrap each day as a precious gift

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