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NF-Lee&#39;s Gildor and Frodo

A bear!

Posted on 2011.08.17 at 11:01


primula_baggins at 2011-08-17 17:46 (UTC) (Link)
Wow, fantastic! Nature is so beautiful, isn't it?

I feel like crying when I hear of a wild animal that is shot because it's in a neighborhood. We moved into their world, but we cannot stand having them around us? It kinda makes me sick. But I don't make the rules. :/

I guess I wouldn't want a coyote killing my dog, either.

mechtild at 2011-08-17 18:17 (UTC) (Link)
It's sad, very sad, when a wild animal in town gets shot. In a way I can't count deer, as most of the ones we see really do live here in town, having migrated here from the forest to live, the bird feeders and domestic plants and vegetables a strong draw, living here generation after generation, so they're not truly wild, not like a moose that wanders in through the green space and gets stuck in a street, standing there terrified or crashing into parked cars and shops in a panic).

A young male bear was shot on the lake walk a few years ago. There was quite a stink. But there were tourists everywhere, and no where for the bear to get away, hemmed in between the lake and retaining walls, narrower and narrower as it approached downtown. People said, why didn't they tranquilize it and take it into the country? That was my question. They wished they had, later, if only for public relations. But when feeling died down people who work with wild life said that trying to relocate animals, especially bears, was almost always a failure. Bears, it was argued, are extremely territorial. You couldn't just plonk a strange one, a male, especially a young inexperienced one, in the habitat of some other male. It would be killed or chased until it starved or killed by a male in the next habitat. A sow bear hibernated under someone's porch a few years back; they didn't try to get it out but let it give birth to her cubs and stay there. The people who lived there were not thrilled but they didn't want the spectacle of bear slaughtered on their front lawn, either. In spring, when the beer began to truly wake, ready to come out and feed, they did tranquilize the mother and cub and they were moved to the country. Even then they said it wouldn't be a sure thing, that they might not be accepted in the new place, but it would be more likely to work than if it were a male. Animal relocation doesn't work, either, if the animal is released too near. If the animal has made town its home, it will simply come back.


Pets have been killed by predators, yes. Not just land predators but birds. Small pets have been carried off by eagles. And a dog, a retriever, I think a Lab, brought down a deer in someone's driveway. People couldn't believe it. Deer can put up a big fight and dogs don't typically hunt deer on their own, especially not by themselves. The dog was not rabid.

A bobcat was killed last year by a homeowner for [nearly] killing its pets - some special geese in this case, which were living in the man's garage in a pen. He'd left the door up to do a few things, heard a lot of carrying on and came back to see his geese being attacked by a huge cat. He ran and got a gun and shot it. He said he was sorry to shoot, because bobcats are beautiful in their own right and necessary for the environmental balance, but if it came to a choice between his geese or the cat, the cat would have to go.
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