Doing right by wild neighbors

When a bear goes over the mountain, it sometimes ends up where it – and the people it encounters – wish it wasn’t. Thankfully, the state Fish and Wildlife Department takes a humane and reasoned approach to corralling bears, a point that was driven home by a Reporter Newspapers report last Wednesday.

July 25, 2008 2:57 pm
Bears like this one that stray into the Covington and Maple Valley areas are trapped humanely and returned to the wild.
Bears like this one that stray into the Covington and Maple Valley areas are trapped humanely and returned to the wild.

When a bear goes over the mountain, it sometimes ends up where it – and the people it encounters – wish it wasn’t. Thankfully, the state Fish and Wildlife Department takes a humane and reasoned approach to corralling bears, a point that was driven home by a Reporter Newspapers report last Wednesday.

In the southeast King County area, wildlife agents have answered about three bear sightings a week in the past month. Covington and Maple Valley are among the human-populated areas visited by bruins. The animals aren’t to be trifled with, but neither should they elicit an over-the-top, fearful response. Bears in this part of the country are usually more afraid of people than the reverse, and are usually just passing through during their instinctive foraging.

Agents firmly but fairly trap bears and return them to the wild, doing a service for the critters and people who want to live and let live.

Editor Pat Jenkins