Taming the Wild… or Killing it

We have seven heavily laden apple trees and I’ve canned so many quarts of applesauce, if I never see another apple it will be too soon. Well, we’ve barely made a dent in the bumper crop on the two transparent apple trees and the other five trees are bending under the weight of the apples on their branches. I’m seeing apples in my dreams.
Everyday we pick up buckets of windfalls. “Where are the bears?” I asked my husband. We could always count on the bears to clean up the windfalls during the night. I know, we should be happy that we don’t have a ‘bear problem’ but in the 38 years we’ve lived around them, we’ve never ever had a serious incident and we’ve never had to shoot a bear.
True, our little Mr. Rutgar was foolish enough to chase a 450-pound black bear out of the orchard last year, but it’s really our fault for not having him under control and letting him bolt out the door unchecked. Lucky for him, he’s a small and fast moving target and I’m certain my screams scared the bear as much, if not more, than my little bouncing red dog.
Regardless, this year we have not had the bear activity that we have grown accustomed to, and frankly, we miss them.
When the cherries were in season, we saw signs of a cub in the neighborhood. In fact, we had left the driver’s side window open on the car and guess who clambered inside? Yes, baby bear. We were fortunate that it hadn’t done any real damage other than a bit of cherry juice smeared on the inside of the passenger door and window and a few well placed tooth marks on the upholstery.
Since then nothing… but gun shots in the night. We observed our neighbor burying something in the field below, but we were unable to see what he put in the ground.
The general opinion in the surrounding rural communities is that all bears are bad, extremely dangerous, and should be eliminated. Period! The push is on the cut down every fruit tree in the nearby village to rid the town of such tasty bear attractants.
When our daughter asked the local Bear Aware folks why we couldn’t take our fruit waste up into the forest or plant fruit trees far from human habitation, the answer was simple. “It’s not natural.” Yet, somehow, our ever-increasing expansion into their habitat is natural… and, I guess, so too are bullets. We just can’t seem to wrap our thinking around this logic.
Just what is natural during this time of climate change? This year we had a long, cold, wet spring and the result was practically no huckleberries or blueberries to sustain the bears. Summer was hot and brief and now an early Fall that is colder than usual. None of this bodes well for wildlife depending on what nature usually provides for them in the surrounding forest.
We can’t tame the wild and we wouldn’t want to… nor should we kill it. We can live with bears. All that is required is a little knowledge, a lot of respect, appreciation, understanding and compassion. Give them the space they need… and don’t begrudge them a few apples.