Black Bear Reality Check

This piece is interesting in that a community, or many in a community (Eagle’s Nest Township, Minnesota), do something we have been told not to do: feed bears. It begins and ends off the bear topic, but it is interesting nonetheless as it investigates our perceptions of what we perceive to be real, if not right and wrong. It’s not that the world is black and white, but sometimes it is indeed, or some shade of gray.  story

This reminds me of a recent situation at Robert Moses beach on Long Island, NY. A red fox came up to me and a friend when I started eating lunch in the parking lot. It was visibly hungry, or very interested in my food, and appeared malnourished. If it lives off of beach snacks and picnic food alone I’m not sure it gets everything it needs. It didn’t get any scraps from me, though it pulled hard on my heart strings. When winter comes and hardly anyone is that the beach this fox will have a harder existence if scraps are mostly what it knows. I hope it can and does hunt for more than human handouts. It will have to compete with relatives and another apt hunter, a feral cat I saw in the dunes. Related to perceptions and the Invisibilia bear story above, I believed a myth or urban legend for more than twenty years ago, that red foxes were introduced to North America. Indeed they were, but it appears the person that told me missed a few details (see the link above as well). Good luck foxy.

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools. Herbert Spencer

 

 

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