A Few Lions, No Tigers and One Bear; Oh MY
A Few Lions, No Tigers and One Bear; Oh MY!
West County seems to have caught bear fever. The sightings and tracking of a juvenile black bear (or maybe two) between Sebastopol and Occidental are headline news. Our wandering friend may soon have his own Facebook page.
Most of us seem to be rooting for the bear. Maybe we’re really rooting for ourselves, for nature and for the wild which we are rapidly losing. It wasn’t that long ago that our region was home to hundreds of black bears and grizzlies were the top predator. That was also a time when the Laguna teemed with herds of elk and pronghorn and our waterways were filled with salmon and steelhead.
As a species, we evolved to be in constant relationship to the rest of our more-than-human community — sometimes as predator, sometimes as prey, but always interdependent. Now that we have extinguished the California Grizzly and most of the big cats we are certainly safer from predation. But at what cost?
The world we experience now consists primarily of other humans or things made or grown by humans. I think this makes us lonely and it makes us forget who we are. We hunger for something but don’t know what it is. A misguided pursuit of happiness leads us to want more and more of what we don’t really need.
An ancient Greek myth tells the story of Erysichthon, the wealthy landowner who comes across a great oak sacred to Demeter, the goddess of abundance. His men recognize the tree for what it is and feel an appropriate sense of awe.
Erysichthon sees only the bottom line and orders his men to fell the great tree. When they refuse, he seizes an axe, decapitates his foreman, who had tried to protect the tree, and proceeds to cut it down. When Demeter learns of this sacrilege, she places a curse on him that whatever he eats will only increase his hunger. He consumes everything he has, including his own children and, eventually, himself.
This is our story. We have severed our connection to the very source of life, and as a result we are possessed by an ever-growing hunger that we try to fill by consuming more and more. We have mortgaged our children’s future for our short-term gratification and, in the process, squandered the true wealth we have inherited, destroying the fabric of life that sustains us.
Every 20 minutes, on the average, another species goes extinct, mostly from loss of habitat and a changing climate. We may not miss the xerces blue butterfly or the Fort Ross weevil, but we will miss the polar bears and the elephants as they leave us.
We may think that the California tiger salamander or the spotted owl are not as important to us as a new housing development or a few thousand board feet of lumber, but we will surely be the poorer for it. Our ecosystem has been amazingly resilient but we are pushing the limits of its ability to recover.
We haven’t left much of a home for the West County Bear or other inhabitants of the wild, but we can still reduce our human impacts by focusing new development in existing urban footprints and by creating wildlife corridors instead of vineyards or fencing.
And maybe — just maybe — we can find a way to recover our own sense of awe and reverence for this amazing planet we call home.
Re: A Few Lions, No Tigers and One Bear; Oh MY
I would be so grateful if the bear wandered by my property and I had a chance to see him/her.....seriously people, its not a 18ft Kodiak Bear, they arent going to eat your small children ( although I have prayed Paul Hobbs meets a Kodiak in a dim alley) all this nonsense about relocating them! leave them alone, or move to town!
Re: A Few Lions, No Tigers and One Bear; Oh MY
We could change this thread to Lions and Bobcats and Bears, Oh My!, and share local wild cat stories. They're here all the time, and I'm sure folks have plenty of good ones to offer. Might give us a picture of how many might be in these here hills. I suspect we only hear about attacks (on humans), not sightings. Alas, our bear visitor(s) will most likely be gone from our presence soon, and likely memories, FTMP, one way or another.
Someone the other day mentioned hiking in the remote areas of Sonoma County, wondering how often we might be watched by the big cats and not even know it. I would guess just about every wild creature who might care knows most of us are there, long before we get "there." In some cases, (if upwind), from miles away... not to mention our human noises just walking and talking and breathing, as opposed to the awareness level wild critters function in.
Of the several times I've seen lions around here (rarely but occasionally), most often it was the hind half and trailing long tail ducking behind cover, them having spotted me 1/2 second or so prior. I'd say we're all watched out there by many more eyeballs than we can imagine.
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Posted in reply to the post by Laurie Meyers:
I would be so grateful if the bear wandered by my property and I had a chance to see him/her.....seriously people, its not a 18ft Kodiak Bear, they arent going to eat your small children ( although I have prayed Paul Hobbs meets a Kodiak in a dim alley) all this nonsense about relocating them! leave them alone, or move to town!
Re: A Few Lions, No Tigers and One Bear; Oh MY
No. We do not want to remove, trap or intrude on the lives of any bears or wild creatures. This is their land here before we were here. The land and ecosystem need the bears and all wildlife. It would be better to sign a petition and put all our efforts into planting more bushes, restoring more creeks and restoring the land for the bears and all other wildlife to live well and to thrive.
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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
A Few Lions, No Tigers and One Bear; Oh MY!
Re: A Few Lions, No Tigers and One Bear; Oh MY
Restoration is key, not only of the landscape, but of basic courtesy in our relationship with the non-human world. Our attitude of human supremacy is substantially the same as our attitudes of male supremacy or white supremacy, only we are even less aware of it.
Imagine the whole world as a wildlife refuge, and we are in-holders and inhabitants. No special privileges. Many mutually beneficial relationships, but no assumption that the human must win in a conflict.
We would have to give up the idea that we have a right to strip the land of everything that does not fit into our commodity system. In exchange, we would be able to come home to our larger family, and create the kinds of gardens that our grandchildren can go wild in.
We have to make this place be good for the other forms of life, because if it's not good for them, it's not going to be good for us either. I think of the bees and the salmon, for instance.
I know this is not an immediate solution. It is a direction which has a future, however, unlike the status quo, whose bankruptcy becomes more obvious each day.
How wonderful that the local bear has managed to avoid deadly encounters so far! How wonderful that so many of our wild companions are ready to try again to live together with us!
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Posted in reply to the post by Oceans11:
No. We do not want to remove, trap or intrude on the lives of any bears or wild creatures. This is their land here before we were here. The land and ecosystem need the bears and all wildlife. It would be better to sign a petition and put all our efforts into planting more bushes, restoring more creeks and restoring the land for the bears and all other wildlife to live well and to thrive.
