[or-roots] Cougars...

[Aileen Itzen]

I applaud your statement.  Aileen
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Harguess, Dale 
  To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us 
  Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 2:47 PM
  Subject: RE: [or-roots] Cougars...


  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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