The North is full of stories and legends and this is one of them.
Some stories are about Smokey Bear. Black bears are sometimes called smokies, because they smoke a lot, and it isnSA国际影视传媒檛 necessarily their fault. Every plant and most critters in the North smoke a little or a lot during forest fire season. ThatSA国际影视传媒檚 just the way the ecosystem works. One can claim to be a non-smoker all they want but during a heavy fire season you breathe in smokey air, and then you breathe the smoke out. The smoke comes from burning a whole lot of different trees, plants, fungi and organisms.
Smokey was a bear, and bears spend most of their time moseying along looking for things to eat. Some years, food was a whole lot easier to find than others. Droughts and years with a lot of forest fires were particularly difficult years.
Smokey lived near a human colony of 20,000 beings, and humans were notoriously messy. They littered and often just threw food on the ground. Also, they threw a lot away, so they had dumps full of edibles. They stored food in their homes in town and in their houses, cottages and cabins out of town. They even put food out to feed some critters. So, itSA国际影视传媒檚 no wonder bears liked to be near human settlements. Some bears were smarter than others. They watched humans go in and out of their dwellings so they learned about doors and windows and when they got hungry enough, they would engage in a little break and enter.
Walking up to my cabin, I couldnSA国际影视传媒檛 help but notice that a shutter had been torn off one of my windows and the window was destroyed. Inside the cabin, the place was a mess. Furniture had been turned over, stuff was scattered about on the floor and various things had been bitten, clawed or smashed. Smokey even emptied the medicine cabinet and ate a few pills. Also, he had chewed up a whole box of Nicorette gum. It says right on the box that chewing too many of them can lead to a bad case of hiccups. So, if a bear walks by hiccupping, make a citizen arrest. I want to charge him with breaking and entering, vandalism and eating my gum.
This brings up an interesting question. Who is responsible and liable for the damage bears create? In a way, they are wards of the government. The government has a wildlife department whose job it is to protect the wildlife from humans and humans from wildlife. If a bear wanders into town, wildlife officers go out to chase it away or shoot it. A bear in town usually has a 50/50 chance of surviving, maybe less.
It gets a little confusing because if you shoot a bear, the authorities will ask lots of questions but if they shoot a bear, well, itSA国际影视传媒檚 part of their job. This is a little disconcerting isnSA国际影视传媒檛 it? A bear breaks into your cabin and you are supposed to shoo it away without hurting it, but if it is wandering down a street in town, it often gets shot by government employees.
To make things even weirder, you can buy a licence from the government to shoot bears SA国际影视传媒� the same bears they are supposed to be protecting. The cost for a license to kill is $119. But if you want to harvest the bear, the price goes up. If you are a non-resident alien, the fee for harvesting a black bear is $238, for a grizzly bear $2,376 and for a polar bear $1,782. I have no idea how they came up with those numbers.
So, it costs $119 to shoot a black bear and more if you want to harvest it and if you are an alien visitor from a distant galaxy, it costs the most. ThatSA国际影视传媒檚 also a little odd, isnSA国际影视传媒檛 it?
I think the government needs to re-examine its bear and human rules. And maybe they could explain them a little better because both the bears and humans are a little mystified.
