Northern Ontario Environmental Issues
Bear Relocation
Campaign
A Vegetarian Tree Huggers Point of View, or...
The Enemy
There's a growing movement in Northern
Ontario to reintroduce black bears to Southern Ontario.
A group of Northerners have put
together a plan to reintroduce the black bear to it's old
stomping grounds in Southern Ontario.
It's my view that this group feels that if it's
overwhelmingly Southern Ontarians that get to decide such things
for us as hunting laws and restrictions, they should at least
get to
see a bear first and spend some time
living with them. Sounds reasonable really.
Many of the people supporting
this campaign seem to be hunters, perhaps in the hope that if
our politicians are forced to say that black bears are a
problem, one they don't want to share, then the spring hunt may
be reinstated.
I am not a hunter by any means, in fact
I'm a vegetarian. I plant trees each spring, use papers made from hemp
and cotton instead of trees, recycle religiously, and buy cars based on
gas mileage and pollution standards instead of style and prestige. In
short, to many of the hunters who are supporting the bear re-location
campaign I might be known as... The Enemy.
But I can't help but wonder why only we here in the north
get to
see majestic and awesome bears up close and personal? I cannot imagine having an
opportunity to see these creatures only when safely behind the thick and
ugly bars or barricades and cruel confinement of a zoo!
I have seen many wild black bears in my days
horseback riding and walking through our northern bush. I love it. I've shared many
a hot afternoon on dusty back roads with a blueberry
munching ursid while I picked my share of the seasons bounty. I loved having them on my property and getting to watch
the changes in their lives each season, watching each year's cubs grow.
One really large male lived on the edges of my field for years.
Every evening would find me exercising my favorite mare, with Yogi
browsing on the edges of the field watching me. I was his main source of
budget
entertainment for a couple of summers, and in a short time the horses came to
ignore him. But that was him.
I've also had to keep a close eye on my
dogs, nail down the garbage bins, and try to control horses chased by
bears and mad with fear. I've had to keep a loaded gun handy some summers (and learn to
use it) while giving riding lessons to children, because a local bear
was pushing his boundaries in a very unpleasant manner (he tired to
break into a neighbors house as one example). I've had to console a friend,
that lived in town, whose wee poodle was crunched and munched in a
leisurely fashion on her back porch by a large female bear one year, and
I have stood
watching in sick horror as a week old calf, screaming in agony and
terror, was carried off by a large male bear that same summer. And sometimes... I've not
been allowed to share that dusty back road and the seasons blueberries.
Bears are wonderful creatures, beautiful,
intelligent, interesting, and I've found they've provided many hours of
enjoyment in my life. I've always liked having them around. But
bears are not pets, not tame, not cuddly or cute. They are opportunists. Pigeons with power. They will happily take
their food where they find it. In the wild... or in your yard. Fresh
blueberries or fresh poodle. It's all yummy. During the years their
populations get large, sometimes... they just get scary.
Bears are heading south, though
the efforts of this campaign, or just because their numbers are growing
in the north and they are on the move. When they get there I hope you find them as great a
source of wonder as I do.
