Alaska Still Wild, Can Still Kill You

or you can find ways to do it yourself. You decide into which category these fit.

A Soldotna man was pinned under a four-wheeler on the Caribou Hills trail system, just north of Homer, according to the Alaska State Troopers.

Donald Burns, Jr., 63, died of his injuries.

Troopers on Monday around 9 p.m. received a report of a dead man stuck beneath a Yamaha four-wheeler six miles into the Waterhole Trail.

When troopers arrived, they confirmed the man was Burns and that he is deceased.

"Investigation revealed Burns was riding the rough trail and was trying to avoid the deep mud in the center of the trail by high marking a muddy hill," AST wrote in a dispatch, adding that he was not wearing a helmet.

Then there's this:

A day earlier, across the state in St. Mary's, 21-year-old Pulcheria Yupanik died when she crashed an ATV she was driving.

Troopers want to remind people to avoid going out alone. “If something goes wrong, it is good to have other people around to help you and be able to call for help,” said AST spokesperson, Megan Peters.

Cell phones don't always work here, either; a large part of Alaska has no coverage at all. The key part of "wilderness" is "wild", 'kay?

Let's be careful out there, Alaskans.

Tourists Treed by Wolf-Moose Encounter

Outsiders didn't bring a gun. From the Anchorage Daily News:

Two visitors from Ohio interrupted a life-or-death struggle between a moose and a wolf on a Kenai Peninsula trail this week, but it wasn't until after the wolf gave up the struggle and fled that things took a dangerous turn for the men, according to Alaska Wildlife Troopers.

That's when the cow moose charged the men, forcing one up a tree and the other behind a downed tree to avoid the injured animal. There they waited for four hours, the moose holding its ground the entire time, before help arrived and killed the animal, according to troopers.

~snip~

Clark said they weren't armed but wished they were. {emphasis added}

This is really-and-for-true wilderness, folks; that four-legged critter ain't Winnie the Pooh.

Read the rest at the link.

"Outrage" Over Bears?

Once again, people who probably shouldn't live on the frontier are raising a fuss about having to share Anchorage with the wildlife that lives here, too.

EXCERPT:
"Anchorage is unique among mid-sized American cities. The municipality's 285,000 residents share space with at least 65 brown bears and about 250 black bears. The sprawling municipality is surrounded by wild country. Anchorage is next to Chugach State Park, a half-million acre park that wildlife officials have described as a "bear factory."" Read the story here.

It seems the good citizens demand that "something must be done."

That's never a good sign.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It's most important to remember that Anchorage has been here for less than a century, and the wildlife was here long before modern "civilisation." The bears didn't just materialize in Anchorage, last summer. Prior to this squeaky-clean, antiseptic society, those moving here did so with the awareness that there are bears here (along with all the other four-footed critters) and they'll do what bears do ... forage for food, and take advantage of opportunity.


.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Back in Missouri, it was common for the gentry to move from St. Louis out to the rural, neighboring counties. They would find lots of open land near large farming operations, and put up a million-dollar home that was out of keeping with the surrounding area.

Then their complaints began: the dirt road is too dusty (duh!), the dairy herd makes too much noise, and/or the pigs stink. (Yes, the farm was there first. )

The idiocy got so bad that Missouri had to pass a law entitled "The Right to Farm Act." It specifically stated that farming has the right to exist regardless of the encroachment of other uses. Those people wanted to move away from the metropolitan areas, but expected the countryside to be just like the city (except less crowded).

Gee, sorry.

Maybe Alaska needs to enact some similar legislation regarding the wildlife that continues to live here. This is their world, and it's not their fault some people are walking around in Condition White, never expecting the real world to bite 'em on the backside.

The real world has all sorts of critters with teeth and claws - and, as I've noted before - here in Alaska, unarmed humans are NOT at the top of the food chain.

Deal with it, or it will deal with you. (Update: "deal with it" means "shoot the offending animal, or shut up. Either way, don't do anything stupid.")