Subject: [Tweeters] re: bird feeders pro and con
Date: Aug 9 07:32:54 2014
From: Dave Templeton - crazydave65 at gmail.com


hi:

probably the most important tning to think about with bird feeders may not
be intuitive: are there bears in your neighborhood?

if the answer to that question is yes, then a bird feeder is a very bad
idea. turns out bears think bird seed is pretty good stuff. suet is even
better. there's an article about bears in one of the seattle papers
recently which goes into the issue in some depth. and i have had personal
experience within the last few months. a friend decided to set up some
feeders. one morning about 11 am i looked out on her deck and there was
mr. bear. looked like 300 or 400 pounds of mr. bear. i have a picture of
mr bear and his muzzle is about twice as large as that of the biggest
german shepherd i have ever seen. i opened the door and yelled around it
and he left. i did not make eye contact (actually didn't even see him as i
only opened it a crack). he left at that point. i did not have a backup
plan had he not left, other than to nnote therre is another door that opens
on the other side of the house. a week or so later, mr. bear came back and
decided to dine on the cherry tree. the tree is pretty leggy and is thirty
feet tall or so. mr bear went up about ten feet and broke off a 3 to 4
inch branch to see if the cherries out there were worth sampling. given
the location of the branch, mr. bear has the strength to hang onto a tree
and (probably) with one hand break a large branch nearly completely off a
living tree. i have no desire to meet mr. bearr in real time, face to
face. i go into great detail, because i had never thought of human bear
interactions in such depth before.

in summation, if one lives in an area where there are no bears, then the
bird feeder, pro or con, discussion is worthwhile. if one lives where
bears live, in my judgement, that should be the end of the conversation.

regards,
t

--
dave templeton
fall city, wa

crazydave65atgmaildaughtcom

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today; it's already tomorrow
in Australia." Charles Schultz
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