More on killing (or not killing) wild bears
In the comments thread to an earlier post, “No blood for WINE!“, Steven, whose IP address belongs to a college in The City, has left an interesting thought:
What is your position on these killings. I think it’s cruel, and unnecessary, and the winery owner is arrogant and cheap, too cheap to put up a decent fence to keep out wildlife. The law also needs changing so Fish and Game preserves wildlife rather than working for winemaker’s profits. If you’re likeminded do you know how to effectively start a boycott of this winery’s product?
Here are some of my thoughts:
I think I have a less romantic view of wild, dangerous animals than some people. I also think that the pro-animal vintners in the story have a rather cavalier attitude about the bears. The fact is that intentionally attracting bears to areas populated by people is bad for the people and the bears, and they are the real trouble-makers in this story. If anyone is going to boycott any of the vineyards, I’d suggest it be the one owned by the woman who feeds sandwiches to the bears in Yosemite.
Fish and Game should work for people. The winemakers should be working for a profit.
If it is unnecessary to kill the bears, but instead they can simply be moved someplace else, then I’m in favor of that.
I think there is a parallel between this situation and the one presented in the movie “King Kong”. We may feel sorry for the beast, but it’s wreaking havoc on the population, so it needs to be stopped.
What does everyone else think about this bear problem?
December 27th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
I hear bear’s good eatin’.
December 28th, 2005 at 11:29 am
Make a right nice rug, too.
December 28th, 2005 at 5:03 pm
Napa valley wine tastes better than bear. Napa valley grapes taste better when made into wine than when eaten by bears. Stop the bears. Make more wine.
December 28th, 2005 at 9:51 pm
[...] In an earlier post, I advanced the idea of killing bears that have been stealing people’s grapes in Northern California, and then eating the bears while sipping wine made from the very same grapes. Clever, no? In the comments section to the post, No Blood for Wine! (which was followed up by More on Killing Wild Bears), a gentleman named Leland suggested we boycott bear-unfriendly wineries, and was also apparently hungry so he asked what we thought he should prepare for supper: Should we trap and kill bald eagles that eat grapes, too? Killing then eating bears “while sipping a nice red wine” is not just a part of life. At least not mine. [...]