After perusing the local fishwrapper's on-line edition, the local TV news, and a few of my favorite bloggish reads, I find only one thing worth writing about: for whatever reason, the number of bears in our fair city is up sharply this year. Bear-human encounters are up accordingly.
There's a grade school about 2 miles from our house, and Younger Daughter and her next-door friend have long hiked over there to spend time walking around the large "playground" area. It's been good exercise for them - but ...
... but there have been four grizzlies* wandering those grounds lately. And that's not the only instance: a cabbie recorded a black bear trotting across the drop-off area in front of the Native Hospital yesterday, including the cries of the security folks yelling at the gawkers with cell phones to "Get inside! Stay away!" and being blithely ignored. The cabbie, apparently having more sense than most, quickly got back inside the cab while continuing to record.
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On Wednesday, the Wildlife folks shot and killed a male grizzly after it killed a moose calf in south Anchorage. No official word, but I'd guess it's one of the four that were at the school. Same neighborhood, anyway.
There have already been a couple of people stomped by moose this year, and it seems there are quite a few residents of Anchorage who want to try close encounters with an actual predator.
There have already been a couple of people stomped by moose this year, and it seems there are quite a few residents of Anchorage who want to try close encounters with an actual predator.
Sigh...
* The Fish & Wildlife folks identified four different sets of tracks there. Not a good thing at all for a building filled with young children.
4 comments:
Cheechako?
That would be my first guess.
Among the first lessons taught to me as a child was, "Don't go bothering something that isn't bothering you".
Sounds like the gene pool will be thinned. (Human gene pool, that is.) Curiosity doesn't kill just the cat.
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