JRS- I too have questions...having lived in Flagstaff AZ where mountain lions are increasingly present, and interactions with humans frequent, the argument gets a little more personal...here in Alaska where we (humans) are NOT on the top of the food chain (grizzly bear, black bear, moose, wolf, wolverine, perhaps caribou all could easily bring about survival responses under certain conditions). Under these conditions, many folks' attitudes change...it's not uncommon for us to read letters to the editor from folks recently moved to Alaska, to the effect that the city (yep, the grizzly bear and the moose are definitely in town!), state, or federal agencies need to do something (usually like, shoot 'em, move 'em)...most times it's a matter of us just making allowances for 'em...
For example, last summer a 24 hour mountain biker marathon was run in the late summer/early fall, in a year when the salmon run was very late...bears that had become accustomed to salmon leaping out of the water and into their mouth (they watch those videos too while hibernating!), found themselves munching what ever they could find, with berries not even in season yet. Here comes a young lady riding quickly as her headlamps allowed, on a trail that ran in and out of the wildland urban interface, at three o'clock in the morning, and hey, it's dinnertime. She was lucky to have survived, and unfortunately sustained injuries that took a month of hospitalization. What did the marathon race promoter say when interviewed that week? He said he'd be scheduling again for the same time next year, rather intractably. Me? I've had exposure to most of the above charismatic megafauna, have an experience-based sense of their behavior, and when I'm in their presence, I allow 'em as much time and space as their behavior dictates. I agree with you that we need large predators in our forests, but there has to be a whole lot of education of the general urban public before this should happen. -Don > Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 19:02:57 -0800 > Subject: [ENTS] Re: old growth and wolves > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > > > Nice article! > > On my last trip to West Virginia, I was in a state park where they had > an area fenced off to protect it from deer. They had signs instructing > the viewer that this is what the forest was supposed to look like, in > contrast to the forests all around, which were clear of any new > growth. It was pretty striking. > > We need large predators in our eastern forests. Is this possible? I > don't know. It would be great to see wolves and mountain lions back in > the east, but I doubt that I'll live to see such a thing. > > > > On Feb 8, 10:51 am, [email protected] wrote: > > ENTS: > > > > Seattle Times recently ran an interesting article on reintroducing wolves > > in > > Olympic NP to stem the damage to the old growth woods by elk. > > > > Russ > > > > _http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008667916_wolves25... > > (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008667916_wolves25...) > > > > **************Who's never won? Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time > > on > > AOL Music. > > (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?ncid=emlcntu...) > > _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_allup_explore_022009 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org You are subscribed to the Google Groups "ENTSTrees" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
