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Fear sells.Anytime something occurs that might be a little bit dangerous, we have a national tendency to blow it all out of proportion in order to educate (aka: scare the crap out of) the public.
In a time of limited attention spans and a blizzard of choices, death is the penultimate story and the best source of hype (especially when it's easy to stimulate a response with a visual; like the shot of pretty woman followed by a big alligator snapping at some prey).
All the same, for a bunch of self styled cowboys, we're amazingly quick to start over crowding the paranoia aisle. Shortly afterward, the over the top behavior starts popping up.
That's why this story about the current panic sweeping Florida was so nice to see. It takes a rather light hearted view of the more absurd parts of the current situation, while also pointing out the obvious:
It will be a miracle if we get through the next few weeks without some half-wit shooting himself, his truck or his drinking buddy instead of the alligator at which he's aiming.
Alligators used to own at least the bottom two thirds of Florida before a whole bunch of people showed up. They retreated in the face of expansion, but never went away. Even in the early eighties there were local gators that everyone avoided and for the most part, the big lizards avoided people unless it was nesting season. As Florida continues to swell in population, the intersection of human and gator becomes ever more inevitable.
It's hard to pin this part of the problem on growth (without delving into a deeper discussion of human attitudes about animals, not a place I'd like to go just now):
One reason that alligators don't mind people so much these days is that people feed them. This is an act of profound stupidity, and also against the law.
Hand-fed gators lose all fear, and will in the absence of table scraps eagerly go after a pet poodle or even a child. Anybody caught feeding an alligator should be bound with duct tape and hauled off in the back of a pickup truck.
What lessons can we apply to bears?
I'm still a bit amazed that we've somehow got one (or more) fertile female bears living in the local hills (probably the Santa Monica Mountains to the south) and enough males to service them. In the last couple of years, we've had a number of young bears roaming through local neighborhoods, possibly driven north by bigger bears with territorial claims. Despite the fires a decade ago (and maybe in spite of them), bears have taken up residence and thrived .
Stick a frightened bear (or any wild animal really, no matter how small) and a small (or injured) mammal together in the wrong place and things will go wrong, very fast. Even our recent ancestors knew this and a thousand other deadly truths. They dealt with it by breeding profusely and re-marrying often (spouses often died and frequently disappeared). We don't do nearly as well with the reality of sudden or violent death. It's just not supposed to happen, certainly not to a bunch of people who thought we could make everyone "better, stronger, faster".
Eventually an incident will occur and then the fur will fly.
Posted by Dave at May 30, 2006 09:46 PM