CSI: BFE

I’ve been awake since 3 this morning so forgive me if my thoughts are not exactly lucid.

While watching the news this morning there was an interesting story that left me in a perplexed state (more so than usual). After being dropped off in a remote location a couple of lumberjacks were attacked by a grizzly bear; one of them (presumably the slower one, in the vein of the comedian joke where two or more people are in the woods being chased by a bear “I don’t have to outrun the grizzly, I just have to out run you”) was mauled (he’ll be fine, hence the jest). That, in and of itself, is not exactly perplexing.

What’s left me perplexed is the comment from some guy (who’s name/title/reason for being quoted remain unclear to me) who said they’re going to go out in the woods and try and track down this bear. The bear, because it had the temerity to attack a human, will be killed.

The perplexity of the situation strikes me here – how’re they going to know they have the right bear? My wife, the answer to all my rhetorical questions, points out that as bears are territorial there’s a chance that if they find the spot where the attack happened it was probably in the territory of the next bear they find. Me, I says that’s circumstantial evidence.

I’m not a tree hugger, I wouldn’t even hug a tree hugger, but I have a keen sense of justice. I’d like to be sure this is the bear that attacked the man. Due process must be followed. We need to take this bear’s paw prints and run it through the system to see if this bear has committed any previous offences, take a swab (good luck with that one) and run that through UDIS (Ursine DNA Index System), match the bear claw to the claw marks on the victim – all the things they do on CSI. We need to make sure we have the right bear.

If this bear had robbed a 7-Eleven (for the bear essentials… sorry couldn’t resist) or had held up a liquor store, I would be the first guy to grab a pitch fork or a flaming torch to go after this monster. As it stands however, these lumberjacks were in the forest, in the bear’s territory, so maybe the bear thought someone was trying to pull a B&E on his winter stash.

I feel bad for the guy but he’s still alive and will recover.

I feel worse for the bear who will be hunted down and killed because we, as a species, encroached on his territory.

Observations on Life: It’s a bad time to be a bear.