Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

by Mary Roach

What is the proper course when nature breaks laws intended for people?

The worst thing you can do in any situation where a predator seems bent on attack is to turn and run. This is especially true with a carnivorous hunter like a cougar, because running (or mountain-biking) away triggers the predator-prey response. It’s like a switch, and once it’s flipped on, it stays on for a surprisingly long time unless a kill is made.

Generally speaking, translocation is a better tool for managing the public than it is for managing bears.

For every 1.8-degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature, hibernation shortened by about a week. Based on current climate change projections, black bears of the year 2050 will be hibernating 15 to 40 days less than they are now. That’s 15 to 40 more days out on the landscape looking for food. Add “more bear break-ins” to the list of possible consequences of climate change.

(Pitkin County bears consistently prefer premium brands. “They will not touch Western Family ice cream,” Tina White reports.)

Whatever you do in this life, stay away from an inebriated bull elephant in musth.

Depending on your species, religion, gender, and caste, India may be a better place to be an animal than it is to be a human.

In the words of an American rancher I met last year who is also, improbably, a mountain lion activist, “When you have livestock, there’s going to be some deadstock.”

Such is the inside-out history of conservation in America. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the word came to mean what it means to us now. Wildlife and wilderness weren’t conserved for their intrinsic value. They were conserved for hunting and fishing.

Here’s the thing with killing as a wildlife damage control tool. It isn’t just mean. It doesn’t—barring wholesale eradication—

In 2012, a North Dakota woman named Donna called in to a morning talk-radio program hoping to draw attention to a situation that had been bothering her. She’d been in three car crashes involving deer, and each time, it had happened near a DEER XING sign on a busy road. “Why,” she lamented in a recorded encounter that would eventually top one million internet hits, “are we encouraging deer to cross the road in such high-traffic areas?” A short silence followed. “You seem to think,” one of the hosts began tentatively, “that deer-crossing signs are telling deer where to cross?” As nicely as possible, he explained that the signs are meant for us, the drivers, to tell us to slow down.

lol