[or-roots] Cougars...

[Harguess, Dale]

Very well put, I agree.

Dale

 

-----Original Message-----
From: or-roots-admin at sosinet.sos.state.or.us
[mailto:or-roots-admin at sosinet.sos.state.or.us] On Behalf Of
CKlooster at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 1:03 PM
To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us
Subject: Re: [or-roots] Cougars...

 

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

 

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