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<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And that's my soap box.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Carla</DIV>
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