Thread by @Lisavipes, People who actively set out temptations for wildlife ruffle my feathers. When [...]

People who actively set out temptations for wildlife ruffle my feathers. When people are the problem, it's the bear that pays the price.
I grew up in a rural area where our neighbors baited bears for their selfish, short attention span entertainment: it ended poorly. A thread. https://twitter.com/mjcreid/status/1293752447303917573

https://twitter.com/mjcreid/status/1293752447303917573

I grew up in black bear country. I knew how to deal with bear encounters before I knew how to drive. Keep your garbage secure. Harvest fruit asap. Don't feed the bears, ever.
People not familiar with black bears don't/can't/won't realise the immense power and speed of bears. 2/n

Black bears are large mammals... but they're not intimidating-large and massive like a grizzly. Their relatively small size and seemingly slow and calm demeanor give people a false sense of safety in their presence. People think they're cute and entertaining. 3/n

Our neighbors were more recent arrivals to the area, but also came from an area that also had black bears. Ignorance was no excuse here: it was pure selfishness. They started setting out huge piles of apples next to their porch, set out chairs, and watched a black bear eat. 4/n

Other neighbors (and us) told them this was a bad idea, but they didn't listen. They also set out meat for the bear, like last night's leftover chicken.
The bear kept coming. It would show up and eat. However, once these people were used to seeing the bear, they became bored.5/n

It only took these people a couple of weeks to become bored, but by then the bear considered their backyard a go-to food spot. The bear shows up and doesn't see any food. I'm sure these people thought the bear would just stop coming, despite what we all told them. 6/n

Bears are great at sniffing out food sources. So it broke into the neighbor's entryway and raided the spare fridge. It raided their garbage cans (not secured at all). It started trying to raid other people's garbage. Our neighbors had created a Problem Bear.
It got worse. 7/n

The Problem Neighbors also kept rabbits and chickens. The bear started ripping into their hutches and coops looking for food.
The bear, now associating people = food, started chasing neighbor kids.
I was one of those kids. Here's that story. 9/n

I was walking under a conifer tree in our yard, not knowing the bear was in it. I startled it, and it fell out of the tree. It stood up, sees me, & full out runs at me. I turn tail to run...and in true movie heroine style trip, fall, and land in horse poop in the tall grass. 10/n

I'm laying flat on my front, thinking "Ok, roll over so you see it coming!" I do...and wait. And wait. And wait some more. The bear, on not being able to see me anymore, no longer felt I was a threat and took off.
This happened so often that the other neighbors took charge. 11/n

The bear was put down that summer. It took place quickly and as humanely as possible. However, it would never had needed to happen if our selfish neighbors didn't treat the local wildlife as entertainment. Behind Problem Bears are Problem People. 12/n

Problem People aren't swayed by data about how bad feeding bears is for both the bear and people. They don't care: they just want the instant gratification of being special because they're near a bear.
Problem People should be consistently heavily fined for their actions. 13/n

If they refuse to listen to readily available info in how NOT to attract bears (and other large wildlife) maybe they'll hear the money flying away from their accounts. I don't know what the solution is, but we know the eventual death of the bears on their conscience isn't it. FIN

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