Mom2cool, you are beating your head against the wall here, when you try to change someones mind on protecting the ANIMALS. They have their opinions and the poor little wild animal comes first. They don't have to worry about walking out side and coming on a bear. They don't have to worry about laying in bed and a bear smell what they had cooked for dinner and coming in to have a bite of what ever they find. They don't have to tell their child that it can't play outside at all even to ride their bike, because a bear might attack and kill them. So they have no concept at all of those feelings, they can imagine it but it will always be the poor little bear.
I laugh at the over population of the plant excuse and how we are ruining the plant by exsisting in these poor bears yard. How God created man and the animal. Yup he did and he also created the need to survive and gave man the mental power and ability to do so.
Read your Bible again if you are going to use God as an excuse to put wild animals above humans. For the planet to survive everything needs somekind of balance in the wild these animals have no problem killing each other for space to survive. There needs to be a balance and hunting gives that balance. Like it or not.
Bears will feed on what and where they can for the least amount of energy. That means that the buffets provided by people will be easy picking. Including the lunch in the childrens back pack, I would not leave my child out waiting for a bus in your state, these children are lunch waiting to happen.
Sad part about this is that the people who are saying we are over populating the world will still be on the bears side when there is a death no matter what. How anyone can get up in the morning and chose a wild animal over a person's life is beyond me. That I don't understand.
Maybe these people should have a bear visit and then come and tell us poor little itty bitty bears.
To Jamie who said they are just hungry and looking for food. Here is a thought for you and Preppy Hippie. Lets say you live in this state and town with the bear problems. What would you two do if it was you. You and your family are sitting in the back yard having a BBQ and here comes a bear and it endangers your family and then come back on here and tell us about those poor hungry bears. Or take a lunch to a park and have a bear come up on you and your family and then come on here and tell us how you and your family are over populating the world and that poor bear was just hungry. And while you are watching this bear in your yard maybe between you and one of your children remember you can not defend your child even if you have the means because the law will have to arrest you if you do and if they don't the bear huggers, your friends, will be after you for that poor bear being hurt. Maybe to the point that you will have to move to protect your family. But hey you and your family was just out over populating the world anyway so where would the problem really be if that bear did hurt or kill one of your children because hey it was just hungry and it was your fault for trying to live in your own back yard. I mean what was your child doing swinging in the back yard anyway, or playing in the sand box, or riding a bike in the drive, or raising chickens.
I live in the UP of MI and have bears coming up on me all the time. I have a BIG boar (male) and a pretty good sized sow (female) with cubs that come here every season. Last year for most of the summer they played tag in my back yard. She came with her cubs on a day the boar showed up. She sent them up a tree and took off, he followed her for the next month and a half, she would come and start feeding her cubs and he would come right behind her so up the trees these cubs went and off she went. I will tell you that for the next 6 or 7 weeks it was walking on thin ice here. There was no way you could be outside doing anything for fear of being in the middle if she come back to feed those cubs and you were there. The boar would of killed these cubs if he would of had the chance. He would not have had a second thought about it. For all I know he might of, one day they were just gone. I will know this summer as she always feeds them in a clearing in my back yard.
If you have not had it happen to you then how can you commit on it. Like Jamie said what and how would you protect ,feed, and defend your family. Me if my kids where threatened or hungry well anything I had to do would be done.
Now as Preppy Hippie put it this is my opinion you don't have to share it at all. I will respect yours even if I don't agree with it and I hope you can respect mine.
On a different note I am keeping all of you having bear problems in my prayers as your problem with bears is a life and death situation and I am expecting human deaths this year. I hope if it has to happen that it is a bear hugger who gets it but I am sure that it will probally be a child. I just hope that if a life is taken by one of these bears that the family won't have to put up with these bear huggers attacking them till they have to move.
And I hope that these government officals finally get some guts and have the hunt that the DNR has been asking for. These people who manage wild life know the importance of a hunt and a hunt has been long over due in your state. An offical organized hunt does not kill all animals it kills a select few only restoring the balance back to an over populated animal. Over population of animals are not good it encourages dieases. But I am telling the wrong people this again.
Happy Easter