Subject: RE: Nisqually: l-655, long
Date: Jul 14 12:11:18 1996
From: Dale Goble - gobled at uidaho.edu




On Sun, 14 Jul 1996, Diana wrote:

> >If you live in metropolitan areas you may not experience these animals =
> >on the daily-weekly basis that we do
>
> Personally, I get really tired of this argument. You'll find that many
> of the folks in this group, at least, spend a LOT of time in bear and
> cougar habitat
>
> And many of you don't. How many of you regularly have bear and cougar in your back yard? Over the winter, as we would lay in bed at night, we could hear cougar every few nights behind our house. Granted, it is a wonderful exciting sound, but at the same time knowing you have a 120-160# cat roaming in your yard makes you a little nervous...
> Roger and Diana Peffer


I was going to avoid this thread -- but this exchange raises my hackles:

1st wherever "Roger and Diana Peffer" live -- and they have never
identified their location (which is a breach of netiquette) -- they have
no greater claim to a say in how bears are to be "managed" than does any
other voter in Washington. That *is* the fundamental axiom of a
democratic government.

2d and far more fundamentally: if you move into somebody's house, you
acquire no intrinsically superior claim. if you regularly have bear and
cougar in your yard, it sounds like you moved into their space. that
imposes some risks. perhaps you didn't know what you were doing?

dale goble
moscow