Public Support Saves Bear Family Sentenced To Death
And while perhaps I should be ecstatic a family of black bears in Alaska were spared from being “euthanized,” I’m more annoyed and distraught the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was planning to murder a mother bear and her four cubs for acting as bears do and not the way they wanted them to.
In a nutshell, the media and public found out about a family of bears that were living harmoniously with the residents of Government Hill, a neighborhood in the north of Anchorage, Alaska, who then, naturally, decided to swarm the area hoping to exploit this occurrence and take videos and pictures. When the mother bear and her cubs were surrounded and backed into a tree, the mother bear became defensive and began “huffing” at the crowd, a characteristic sound bears make when they feel threatened.
Cue the overzealous biologist with the Department of Fish and Game who witnessed the scene as the department made an announcement the following day that the entire bear family would be killed in the interest of public safety.
Right. That makes as much sense as capturing a wild killer whale, forcing it to swim in circles in a tiny space equivalent to you swimming laps all day in your bathtub, making it to do tricks for small pieces of fish, then killing it when its natural instincts take over and it attacks. How dare it not do exactly what it is we humans wanted it to do?! Now it must die. Oh, wait, that already happens.
Luckily, after overwhelming support from the public and Alaska governor Bill Walker, the department announced they would instead relocate the bears. Victory! Yay! to The Dodo, for humans with souls, and for my new hero Governor Walker for making this possible!
