The Attractive Nuisance

In my police days, I would occasionally be asked to deal with situations that were considered “an attractive nuisance”.   It could have been a fresh dirt pile that might collapse on a neighborhood kid while he was excavating a cave or an unsecured refrigerator left in a driveway awaiting a dump run.

While these situations are not criminal, they are enticing and dangerous to neighborhood children and taking proactive measures keeps everyone safe.

Over the past month, two grizzly bears have been shot. One was returning to a cabin to feast at a bird feeder and the other was dispatched for having designs on chickens and/or goats being raised north of Henry’s Lake. While one has a right to maintain chickens, goats and bird feeders, they may not be prudent to maintain in grizzly country. Knowing that you have several neighbors with cats, would you construct an outdoor sandbox, only to get aggravated and shoot any felines that use it as a rest stop?

When camping in grizzly country, I avoid cooking bacon, sausage, steaks or hamburgers because I know that the smell is enticing to bears. I don’t want the visitors, so I cook accordingly. Prevention is simpler than confrontation.

The bears may be only terrorizing barnyard animals and bird feeders but being drawn into cabins will eventually result into a surprise meeting with a resident, perhaps someone’s grandchild. Less enticement means less chance of an encounter.

While we are on the subject of grizzlies, it is time to delist the bears. They are far from endangered. There are probably more grizzly bears than black bears in Island Park. Environmentalists have complained that global warming is killing the white bark pines and without that food source, grizzlies would cease to exist. It appears that they are capable of expanding their menu. They will flourish with or without the pine.