Consider the following:
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Spring is here and bears are emerging from their dens for the short stroll to Alaska's largest city. Some residents are putting out the NO VACANCY sign...
...Wanda Phillips is among them. She recently moved from Washington state — where she saw no bears — to the Anchorage suburb of Eagle River, where there are lots of bears.
Last summer, Phillips saw at least 10 bears near her home. A grizzly camped out in her back yard defending a moose kill. Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials told her to keep the family inside until the bear was finished with the carcass."It (that advice) didn't seem very helpful to me," she said. "We have a real safety problem. The fact is they are ignoring it, it is a time bomb."
While I'll not now or ever speak for anyone else, let me make my feelings abundantly clear:
Dear Ms. Phillips,
Kindly go back to Washington and stay put. Alaska will be better off without you and your demands that things there change to suit you and your needs, likes, and dislikes. You went to the Grizzlies, the Grizzlies didn't come to you. Get it? I doubt it.
I'm reminded of the great shark scare of so many summers ago when "Jaws"
debuted. People were scared skinny over shark attacks. People were losing sleep, having nightmares, wetting their shorts over being eaten, or worse yet, half-eaten, by a Great White Shark.I've had the solution all along: If you fear sharks, stay the hell out of any body of salt water, even brackish water. Sharks don't come up on the boardwalk looking for you, don't go in splashing around in their space where you just might look like lunch.
If it hurts when you go like that, don't go like that.
Same holds true here: You fear Grizzlies, and you should, then stay away from Grizzly World, and that would be Alaska.
Those Grizzlies will be better off without you, too, since I figure you'd do away with them all rather than adapt. Alaska is likely the last frontier wilderness we have left, get out and stop trying to turn it into downtown Jersey City.
Thanks for your time and consideration. Have a dandy day.
