The periphery of nature is a scary place for critters and people alike. Thing of it is, every time we expand out we create a new frontier. A bear ate my friend's dogs when I was in 8th grade and that house had been there since 1951; my sister spent two weeks in intensive care and she didn't so much as have Vibram-soled shoes.
A little post about a chipmunk has kind of taken a dark turn, huh? Indeed. I have a few friends who live in an area where mountain lion encounters are a common occurrence. Me, I've had three run ins with nature this year, nothing major, the most intense being trapped in my car by a wild turkey who cut me off in the middle of the road just would not let me go anywhere and didn't appreciate the size of the machine it was squaring off against. All three times, I was in the fortunate situation where I was less concerned about my safety and more concerned about hurting the animal. A bear or a buck or something gets near me though? Then I got a different kind of concern. Either way, I carry rocks with me for hazing whenever I go out now. That said, we're starting to look at role reversals where what we once considered more exotic wildlife is starting to come closer to us, like coyotes and gators and deer and such ending up in cities. There's tons of reasons why, but one of the compelling parts of the conversation is that they're kind of running out of places to hide, what with urban sprawl and all, and cities offer plenty of opportunities for easy food and places to hide.every time we expand out we create a new frontier
"Whoa, careful - you should never approach squirrels because the nicer they are the more likely they are to kill you. Plague is a horrible way to die, here let me show you pictures of bubos from my medical textbooks when we get home." - my mother, to me, ages 3-17 (and yes - looking at medical textbook pictures of plague victims at the age of four will forever change your relationship with squirrels) When they ran the river homeless off, the new breed that moved in were less clean. They brought rats. Rats that would freak out when I rode by, and jump and try to scramble up my leg. One of them made it into my shorts. The rats brought coyotes, though, because coyotes are good at eating rats. So pretty soon there weren't many rats but there were plenty of coyotes. And they were the brave coyotes. Within a couple months the coyotes were taking dogs out of back yards in broad daylight. And then we have to argue about whether or not we're going to shoot coyotes in urban Los Angeles. All because we chased off the guys who were good at living in the river and replaced them with guys who were bad. Circle of life.A little post about a chipmunk has kind of taken a dark turn, huh?
That said, we're starting to look at role reversals where what we once considered more exotic wildlife is starting to come closer to us, like coyotes and gators and deer and such ending up in cities.