Editor:
When I first came here 25 years ago it was really rare to see a deer and people would rush to get their kids. While I thought that a set of hoof prints would not enhance their cherubic smiles, I said nothing.
When the deer population started to explode and my garden became their salad bar, people blamed me because the deer were here first. So I turned my English garden into a prison camp complete with lights and said nothing.
Then the coyotes and cougars arrived and the summer evenings resonated with the screams of cats and dogs being torn apart and we started keeping the children indoors more. Luckily, this time coincided with the popular idea that it was immoral for cats and dogs to kill things and they should eat vegetable protein and be kept indoors. Again I said nothing and the rat population exploded.
Then the bears went from being a very rare sighting to roaming freely in the centre of town, occasionally being cornered by stupid people taking selfies. I am now having multiple encounters with bears sitting on my doorstep or sitting in the shadows waiting for me to stumble accidentally upon them. I used to sit on my top-floor balcony watching them stalk the deer until I saw a huge bear climb up my neighbour’s second-floor balcony in seconds. Again I didn’t say anything because I would be blamed for having attractants, even though the main ingredient was evidently me.
But the latest letter about living in harmony with bears and that nothing bad comes out of it is just the final straw. Bear attacks are common and people get badly injured and killed. Even having a deer come through your windshield will ruin your day.
Prey goes where it thinks it’s safe and at the moment it’s in our housing estates. Predators go where the prey is and now that is also in our housing estates.
Blaming garbage control is avoiding the real issue, which is to stop making our towns safe for wildlife bigger than a sparrow.
Deer and bears are not anywhere close to being endangered. Right now we would need helicopter gunships to reduce their number adequately.
These are wild animals and they need to be in the wild where they can do their own culling program on well-meaning idiots that go walkabout in their territory without proper training or a .50 cal.
Chester Machniewski, Gibsons
