Where there is yet wild to be found.
Yes, Tamara repeated/reported it first, from Hobie's site, but this bears a reiteration: Go look at the video caught of a brown bear killing a moose on someone's driveway. Be sure to click on all three videos on that page to see it all.
The best part is the calm narration of what sounds like a man and wife on the second and third one. Imagine how many people in your neck of the woods would be pitching a fit. Yes, even your neck o' the woods.
Alaska is truly our last frontier. Even Montana, north Idaho, and Wyoming are, from what I'm hearing, losing some of their wildness. People move to Alaska to go to that last land of the wild, and, as such, they learn to accept it; indeed, they expect it. New tracking studies show brown bears (if they lived on a big island to the west, they'd be called "Kodiak" bears) are actually regularly moving through downtown Juneau, generally without incident. Click on the graphic to the left of that article, and then click on the different bear collar numbers. Look at bears 200, and 208! Wow.
Even down here in Texas, where we're supposedly so very rugged (yawn), our locals are having fits because [gasp!] an alligator was sighted in Lake Lewisville. Um, people? They're native to the state, though mostly by the coast. Build a giant lake where there wasn't one, and you'll get alligators where they weren't. Next you'll start freaking out to find that we've got copperheads, water moccasins, rattlesnakes of several varieties, and even the odd coral snake.
Most folk in a lot of the Lower 48 would be surprised to learn how frequently cougar wander through their areas, as well. I think I'd just as soon they not know.
I'm a hunter, and I have no qualms with taking game and even hunting predators, on occasion. I've no real interest in hunting bears and cougar, so long as they're behaving themselves. I'd be sad if we lost any more wildness. Sprawl is encroaching upon our wild areas. I hope we can keep as much of Alaska as wild as we can for a good long time.
I need to get there.
Labels: environmental stuff, Texas, Utopia
posted by Matt G @ 1:29 AM
7 Comments:
Hey there, you need to get to Sitka, Alaska....where the Bald Eagles are as plentiful as pigeons!! They're everywhere! Truly awesome.
It still amazes me when I do see wildlife. It saddens me further, though, when I see that wildlife in an urban setting. Coyotes in a city park, nearly bit by a coral snake and a rattler on a bike trail, deer...well, they're just all over, aren't they?
I've also been blessed to see nature at its best, too. Kodiak Grizzlies feeding on the shore as our plane landed at Kodiak airport. A moose being chased down by a brown bear in Colorado while on a trail ride. Mountain lion chase and kill a buck at my deer lease. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom has nothing on some of the stuff I've experienced.
You just hope and pray that there will be enough wildlife to pass on to future generations.
We have our share of wildlife here in southeast GA too - beyond the deer (and all that deer damage) including the pack of them hanging out in the woods behind my house, besides the bobcats whose tracks I can see in the dirt road that runs by my house when I go out for a walk, besides the wolf that my dog escorted off my property once or the broken-winged egret that took up residence here for about three months after the DNR said he'd probably just run off ... the most frightening thing I ever saw was evidence of an animal that I never did see.
A few years ago it was a hot dry summer and I had planted some gardenias and roses to line my driveway. Dirt driveway, dirt country road. I kept them watered, though, and sometimes the water would stand there. -It occurred to me after the evidence - a 5" wide cat print with very deep claw marks in the clay - disappeared once the rains started, it was just a very thirsty animal (likely a panther, I had heard the screams at night)looking for standing water to drink. The prints stayed on the side nearest the woods, never did cross the driveway, but still I did not step beyond my well-lit carport at night for quite some time.
I saw 3 coyotes Sunday night in the Dallas suburbs. I've got possums the size of cocker spaniels in the alley behind my house. There are so many cottontails in my neighborhood you can't walk the dog without flushing at least 2 or 3 every few blocks.
I've heard there are still plenty of mink in Collin Co.
and not just in coats. They pulled another dang gator out of the creek about a mile from here a couple of weeks ago.
Regards,
Rabbit.
We had a gator here in SA a little while back. Bit the bumper of a police cruiser, in fact. It was apparently by loop 410 on the south side. Some of that area is pretty rural.
I am always kind of baffled by folks who move out to the country (or what used to be the country; makes me sick to see the subdivisions cropping up on what used to be farmland) and then are surprised when they have to deal with wildlife. How dumb can folks be?
Bellinda--
Exactly.
I could recall for you several instances in which I took calls from new homeowners who built their house in a forest, then called me to ask me to remove or shoot the skunk/opossum/coyote/armadillo/snake etc. in their back yard at night.
"Um, you realize that they were here, first?"
Oops. I meant to type "BellaLinda."
("Beautiful Pretty"? Dang. Wish my mirror were so kind...)
Post a Comment
<< Home