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Other places may celebrate National Bread-and-Butter Pickle Day or Adult Survivors of Childhood Month, but Colorado will be doing something a little different soon, with the start of Bear Awareness Week on Friday.
According to the Division of Wildlife, the idea is to make people more aware of how to prevent problems with Colorado's 10,000 or so black bears who are now emerging from hibernation.
But as a journalist, I have a duty to get all sides of the story, and so I wrangled an invitation to a recent meeting of the Ursine Liberation Front.
My guide explained that I was selected because our dog,
a chow mix, looks just like a small black bear. That
tells us that you're tolerant and open-minded and don't
just judge by appearances. You'd be surprised how bigoted
some of your kind are -- they automatically hate anything
that is furry, walks on four legs and has huge
teeth.
I just nodded without explaining how that creature was a cute cuddly little puppy when I first met it, and followed my guide across the river and up Cottonwood Gulch toward the Crater in the Arkansas Hills.
Eventually we reached the meeting site. Bear meetings are not nearly as organized as human meetings. I expected to receive a manifesto, or at least a list of non-negotiable demands, but instead, they had questions.
Why is it that you put food out for us, and then get
mad if we get into it?
one young sow asked.
Patiently I explained that many humans just think they're emptying the garbage, and are just too stupid to recognize that they're actually putting food out for the bears. Thus they don't expect bears to show up, and become quite frightened when some do.
Her friend had a question. That food you put out
really smells and tastes good,
she said. But the
last time I got into some, this fellow came out and started
yelling at me that old french fries and Hostess Twinkies
were bad for me and I should go back up in the woods and
eat berries if I knew what was good for me.
He was right, I explained.
But if they're bad for us, aren't they bad for you,
too? Aren't we both omnivores?
Well, yes, fast foods and sweet treats aren't that good for humans, either, I conceded.
So why do you get to eat them and we don't? Just how
can you expect us to be better than you are?
Fortunately, while I was hemming and hawing, and old
boar lifted his head. Let me see if I've got this
straight,
he rumbled. You keep moving into our
territory, but whenever we move around in our territory,
just going about our normal lives of eating and breeding
and hibernating, we get accused of being invaders -- when
we haven't moved at all. Now, how can I be an invader when
I haven't invaded anything?
America works that way, I explained. Humans have a great power of imagination, and when they imagine that a given hillside will become an amenity-laden gated upscale real-estate development that is free of poor people, mountain lions and black bears, that's what they expect to be able to construct. Once the parcel is defined a certain way, then certain parties become invaders.
The old boar looked confused, but when I started to
speak again, he cut me off. Don't even try,
he
said. I just don't understand why they market these
parcels as being scenic and natural with lots of wildlife
around, and then when some wildlife actually shows up
outside their picture windows, they try to shoo us away, or
even to kill us.
A matriarchal sow spoke up. Your kind isn't fair at
all. You'll identify so-called 'problem bears,' and the
second or third time they run into trouble, you execute
them.
I nodded, and she proceeded. We do the same thing.
We identify 'problem humans,' the kind that move into our
territory and don't do a good job of keeping house. They
leave birdfeeders and pet food outside. Some of them just
set their garbage on the porch, or in an open barrel right
next to the house. Or they leave food in their cars. They
don't respect my strong maternal instincts and they get
between me and my cubs.
And I've tried and tried to teach these problem
humans -- first with some warnings, like trashing out their
cars or spewing their inedible garbage all around. A lot
of them will relocate after that.
But some of them don't seem to learn. And so I don't
see that we have much choice but to execute the 'problem
humans.' They've acquired bad habits, and they won't
change.
The bears started yawning, which I took as a sign that they weren't yet fully awake for the season. I crept away, then tore off down the hill, hoping that I wasn't one of the problem humans.
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