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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Bear Fitting Description of Bear Spotted

Bear mauls hiker in Kentucky. Says wildlife spokeswoman Barbara Atwood "They had a bear sighting yesterday. However, they could not confirm that it was the bear in question", adding hopefully that "...they feel confident the bear is still in the area." Hats off to anyone who can catch a bear without killing it. But this whole issue of catching a reprobate animal is a perpetual puzzle to me: how exactly does one confirm that a particular black bear is the bear? Every black bear I've seen looks exactly the same as any other. Sighting one amounts to sighting any one. (How might it fit some description? Rumbles about the woods? Wearing all black?)

So anyway this dubiously perspicacious observation exposes only my complete ignorance compared to wildlife experts who appear, from the ignorant outside of things, to be pulling off some sort of nature magic trick. On a related point, I'm confident that the perp is still in the area, too.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm....Erik, are you suggesting that the wildlife officers are guilty of profiling? The bear was acting suspiciously after the attack (shifty-eyed and sniffing around) and fit the description. Sounds like rational policy to me.

Welcome to Cali!

Beck

Erik J. Larson said...

Yes but apparently they couldn't confirm that they bear they spotted was the bear who attacked, in spite of sniffing around, etc. What more do they need?!

Erik