THE TRAGIC CARTOON THAT STICKS IN MY HEAD
The inescapable peril that peninsula-Florida bears face is exemplified by a cartoon that I carry in my head. It starts out with a woman in a house (because the woman next door first made this statement to me) saying "I like the animals; I just wish they would stay in the woods." In the next frame, the forest next to her house has been destroyed and in its place are several houses. From those houses everyone is saying "I like the animals; I just wish they would stay in the woods". And of course, the forest next to these new houses is then destroyed and there is a new housing development in their place. And from all those houses comes the statement "I like the animals; I just wish they would stay in the woods".
Do you ever stop to think where they go when their home has been destroyed? I guess that most people just do not care. Theoretically (and probably literally) the surrounding areas are already at Carrying Capacity (K).
The land was theirs in the first place. Now, it seems that the only solution is to kill every last black bear,
even as the remaining few desperately try to co-exist with the species that took their land from them in the first place. Yes, this is the tragic ending for peninsula-Florida's remaining bears. There is no room for bears in peninsula Florida....none.
Why aren't people capable of, or willing to, acknowledge and discuss the root cause of Florida's current bear problem instead of blaming the bears?
Increasingly, Florida's unprotected wildlife habitat is being permanently destroyed by developers who are trying to gain wealth by meeting the demands of an ever-increasing human population. Florida's human population growth RATE is ever-increasing. "Land Developers" (again, an oxymoron) are constantly looking for new areas to exploit.
Florida bears are desperate and have become dependent on people. The fact is that people have taken absolutely everything the bears need to survive, and now the bears are even willing, but struggling, to co-exist with them. They are hungry…..very, very hungry.
When we get hungry we have the luxury of just going to the fridge. For Florida bears, humans have taken their food sources from them. All that pensinsula-Florida bears have left are small, disconnected pieces of habitat that was once huge tracts of suitable habitat. Of course, bears do not understand how or why this is happening to them.
As bears go, the black is a relatively timid, benignly natured animal. Oh yes it is. If it was not then the remaining bears would be carting off children. These bears that are being shot are desperate, scared bears that have been conditioned by some Floridians into thinking they can trust people, because some people feed them.
Humans are the only species whose behavior cannot be confidently predicted....cannot be trusted. My best friend, and fellow Wildlife Biologist told me that one of the main reasons he got into Conservation Biology (which he now considers himself to be) is because this wild resource is predictable. Human beings and animals that humans have domesticated....are not predicable. Tom just told me that until black bears start paying taxes they will continue to be exploited. He said, it is all about taxes and money dude.
How would you feel if a species came into the area you have always lived in and destroyed it? They took your home and then when you came back desperately looking for something to ease your hunger pains, they began attacking you and even killing you and your family. That is exactly what is happening and yet, nobody is talking about the perils that man has placed these bears into.
Is anyone in Florida talking about this aspect of it?
HABITAT!
Wildlife needs habitat. You all know this. Why can't people simply understand and accept this for what it is. Habitat is all they need...food, cover, water. But humans are going to take all of it from them....all of it!
When I lived outside Lauderdale (during the 1980's) , Florida's population growth rate was 700 new people per day!
Florida's 2015 daily population growth RATE is at 1000.
One-thousand new people permanently move to Florida every day!
http://www.stateofflorida.com/facts.aspx
And Florida's human population is going to continue growing at an increasingly faster rate.
So the bears have to go. The bears will go. The bears will die...every last one of them.
Wisely, FFWCC puts the removal of the bears into the people's hands. By doing so the Commission does not look so much like the bad guys and they bring in revenue to boot.
The bears? They lose absolutely everything. In a confused state, they struggle to simply survive with what little is left them, but will be inexorably squeezed out....and ultimately, they will all die. I am shocked by what the person from Tampa said. There are still a few bears left around Tampa Florida? I would have bet against it. But I do believe you. These bears cannot get out of there. They are trapped there. Bears in the PanHandle can wander northward looking for new habitat. Not so for the ones in the peninsula. They are trapped there and they will die there, either on the highway or by the gun.
SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE ABOUT THESE BEARS!!!
But all that is talked about here are your fears with bears coming into your back yards and getting into the trash. But do the bears have any feelings about all of this? You never even stopped to think about that did you?
Yes, of course it is an overpopulation of bears in Florida. It is overpopulated for the amount of fragmented habitat that man has left the black bear to survive within. And eventually there will be none left.
It deeply saddens me when I read someone saying that something needs to be done about too many of "this or that" wildlife species that is around their home.
The cartoon in my head exemplifies the ignorance and selfish attitude of the human pop in general toward the plight of all wildlife in the face of the ever-expanding,
aggressive, human species.
Robert King
itsaboutnature.smugmug.com
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