The Bear Facts

First of all, I apologize. This is so off topic. I must start by saying I am by no means against hunting. It has long been a means for my ancestors to survive for thousands and thousands of years. I for one, do not partake in the annual hunt as hundreds of thousands of folks in Canada and the US do each year. The closest I get to hunting for my own food, is fighting over the marked down steak at Superstore with twenty other hungry bbq warriors. My fish either comes in a beautiful garment made of beer, flour and a few other ingredients...or laying on a cedar bed with a quilt of dill, red onions and little bit of olive oil. I do, however, love the wilderness. When I am out walking through the woods, trail or no trail, I always keep one thing in mind. No matter how much I feel at home surrounded by the trees and animals, I am trespassing in their backyard. So when I read an article like the one on the CBC website August 14 "12 killed bears were a threat to public", I am sadened. As the urban sprawl continues throughtout Canada, we have to keep in mind, for every foot we expand, two feet are taken from the homes of wildlife. We take our garbage, dump it right in the middle of the bear's livingroom and when they come around because of all the food smells, we consider them dangerous and kill them. We all seem to suffer from the not in my backyard mentality. News for everyone, it is the bear's backyard as well. Over the past number of years, the number of bear attacks are increasing. Are the bears to blame for this? Or are we to blame for taking away the bears territory. Now I know, a lot of people are going to disagree with this and say that we are human, the bears are animals, we have a right to the land. I can not remember seeing a story about a group of bears clearcutting a forest to make way for a new bear mall. I can not remember a story of a new bear open pit mine opening up. And I sure as hell ca not rememeber a story of a group of bears wanting to bury toxic chemicles in the Canada Shied area. I ask you, who is the smater being, us or the bears?
Speaking of woods, have you ever noticed how unhealty a forest of only one type of tree looks? Let's say for example, you take a wood lot and cut down everything but red spruce. Notice what happens. The ground cover starts to change. Eventually there will be no low ground coverage to hide the small animals, no will there be anything for the small animals to eat. Everything will be covered with a blanket of moss, with an occassionla fern. Is t his a healty forest? No. So what does this tell us? In order for a forest to be healthy, there needs to be a large mixutre of trees, some softwood, some hardwood, and all the various ground covers. When forests are mixed like this, you end up with a more balanced environment. Hmm...sounds a lot like us. Let's take our lesson for the day from trees. If we have only one homogenous group of people living together, is this a good thing? How boring would that be if everyone was the same? Would we survive? Probably. Would we thrive? Probable not. Would we be missing something? Absolutely...what that is, is for you to figure out. I know. (I guess this was not as off topic as I thought)