Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

by Mary Roach

Colorado Parks and Wildlife, like many state wildlife agencies, has a two-strike policy. If Kurtis gets a call about a bear nosing around someone’s trash or hanging out in a back yard, say, he will attempt to trap it, and if he succeeds, he’ll ear-tag it and take it into the woods and release it and hope it doesn’t come back. (A trap is left in place no more than three days, to lower the odds of trapping the wrong bear.) Often the trap stays empty. “We’re not catching them like we used to,” Kurtis confided later. “I don’t know if they’ve just gotten smarter, or what the deal is.” The bear that broke in here would not be granted a second strike. Because it’s breaking into locked windows, and will likely continue to do so—and, if it’s a sow, teach its cubs to do so—the agency considers it a threat to public safety. Kurtis says people often decline to report break-ins, because they know their call may set in motion a death sentence for the bear. The black bear is a ridiculously lovable species. There’s a reason kids have teddy bears, not teddy goats or teddy eels.