Officials in Ouray, Colorado are thinking a bear is the cause of a 73-year old woman’s death because a bear was found over her body eating it. The same officials point the finger at the woman, faulting her with her own death because she continually fed bears, the report says.
An autopsy will be performed on the unidentified woman and a necropsy on the bear in efforts to determine if the bear found eating on the woman was the same bear that might have killed her.
In the meantime, reports are coming out about increased human/bear encounters in Ouray County, Colorado, the same area where this woman was apparently the target of a hungry bear(s).
Officials point a finger at a lack of natural food and people not taking care of their personal garbage as the two major reasons encounters are on the rise. While there’s little that can be done about the lack of natural food, brought on by natural climate conditions, it appears officials are bent on focusing on only one very small aspect of bear management – increasing fines to those who refuse to take care of their trash. They actually think this is the remedy.
Granted, if you don’t want bears rummaging through your garbage and posing a potential risk to you and your family, then people should do what they can to minimize the problem. On the same token, not once in the two articles I have referenced in this piece, did any wildlife official or anyone else mention the idea of population control of bears.
Why is it that all the blame is put on resident’s lack of effort to reduce bear encounters and none on the fish and game department and other wildlife officials, to better manage bears? When you decide to buy a home, camp or cabin in bear country, you assume a certain amount of responsibility to learn to deal with bears and other creatures. But on the same token, you would expect fish and game to take responsibility, other than levying stiffer fines, to control bear numbers. Since the beginning of time, we have had to deal with seasons when there is a shortage of natural food.
So, are we to assume now that buying a home in Vail, Colorado is living in bear country and if a bear gets hungry enough and opts to munch on one of the family members, we need stiffer fines for that same family? Will a $10,000 fine deter a hungry bear?
And here’s another question I’ve been chewing on for awhile. If officials keep raising fines on people who won’t take care of their garbage, who won’t stop leaving food out on their dining room tables, who refuse to stop baking cakes and pies, who go outside and garden, who mow their lawns, who entertain guests on their back yard patios, who allow their children to play in the yard, and suppose in theory every ounce of man’s property was “bear proof”, then what? None of this will stop bears from getting hungry. None of this will create natural food when Mother Nature dictates the bounty. None of this will control the populations of bears.
In theory, once the state creates their perfect little restricted world, complete with multi-thousand dollar fines and there are still bear/human encounters, are we then to expect humans will be expected to stay inside 24/7 and lock their doors, bar their windows and live in fear?
Tom Remington
