<p>My apologies to all those from the East Coast, that I snickered at who thought of Seattle as some Wild West Backwater where BEARS wander the streets.</p>
<p>[Apparently</a> they do.](<a href=“http://www.kirotv.com/news/19489400/detail.html]Apparently”>http://www.kirotv.com/news/19489400/detail.html)</p>
<p>I don’t know who from the East Coast would be thinking bears only wander the streets out west. They do so here as well. In fact a cub was accidently killed by a car on my road recently.</p>
<p>well- I was extrapolating an assumption of those who only consider schools on the East coast, especially New England as worthy with only occasionally acknowledging Stanford or MIT as suitable for their progeny- but it is still pretty unusual to have sizable wildlife in the streets of a major city
;)</p>
<p>Nah, EK, I never thought of Seattle and bears – I imagine it as a place where it rains every day, people drink lots of coffee, and there are lots of slugs in the yard…</p>
<p>MIT is on the East coast…</p>
<p>Perhaps EK meant CalTech?</p>
<p>LOL. A few of summers ago there was a bear with a taste for pizza that was raiding suburban garbage cans. I’ve seen deer in the suburban cities and coyote on the edges of the highway.</p>
<p>I live in Northeast Jersey, fairly urban. Towns around us get bears wandering the streets fairly often. And deer are like big white-tailed rats around here.</p>
<p>So, if I’m going to stereotype Seattle, it’ll be coffee and rain, not wildlife.</p>
<p>“The other day I was talking with my girlfriend about what we fear most. She said I fear you’ll meet someone prettier than me and leave me for her. What do you fear the most and I said . . . bears.”</p>
<p>~Mike Birbiglia</p>
<p>oh that reminds me
[Cat</a> 1, Bear 0 In New Jersey - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/09/national/main1697234.shtml]Cat”>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/09/national/main1697234.shtml)</p>
<p>My favorite story along these lines lately</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.pineconearchive.com/090109PCA.pdf[/url]”>http://www.pineconearchive.com/090109PCA.pdf</a></p>
<p>I’ve met the dog and he is a perfectly normal black lab - very friendly in most cases…</p>
<p>A bear was sighted in Brookline, MA last year, I believe.</p>
<p>Yes, Garland says, NJ does have bears and I have seen several wandering the streets, but in more rural areas. I have seen deer in rural and nonrural areas and have seen a few in my own backyard over the years.</p>
<p>We’ve had bears in the city to our north and moose and deer in the city to our south. We even have deer in the woods of our office building. I sometimes see them crossing the main driveway. They leave the area but not in a great hurry which means that they are somewhat used to people. We also have a hawk that flies around in the parking lot. He was once perched on the lamp just outside my window.</p>
<p>I had a friend that worked in a Seattle suburb and reported a panther (or some other large cat) in the neighborhood that was going after small pets.</p>
<p>FACT: NJ has higher deer population today then it did 200 years ago. The reason is that there are no natural predators and hunting is restricted to rural areas. We live less than 15 miles from Manhattan in a urban/suburban environment and the deer are a serious nuisance. There is even a large population that live their whole lives in the medium of the Garden State Pkwy. </p>
<p>Today, NJ and the entire northeast also has more trees then it did 200 years ago, but that’s another story.</p>
<p>Hard to believe that states don’t just open up hunting with fees on the take. States are so cash-starved these days that they’re looking into everything but seem to have ignored this potential revenue source.</p>
<p>There have been several moose on/near major highways near Boston in the past few years. And downtown Brookline (right next to Boston) supposedly had a major wild turkey problem last year - people on the sidewalk on a major thoroughfare were being attacked buy Toms that stand 3 feet or taller when they put their heads up and strut around.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here are some in decidely non-rural parts of NJ:
[Bear</a> falls from tree in suburban New Jersey - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-02-12-bear_x.htm]Bear”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-02-12-bear_x.htm)</p>
<p>[Bear</a> reappears in West Orange - NJ.com](<a href=“http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/bear_reappears_in_west_orange.html]Bear”>Bear reappears in West Orange - nj.com)</p>
<p>[Police</a> Kill Bear Cornered At Urban New Jersey Home - New York Times](<a href=“http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDE173EF932A25756C0A9609C8B63]Police”>Police Kill a Bear Cornered at Urban New Jersey Home - The New York Times)</p>
<p>[Bears</a> Fail To Obey New Jersey Laws [tsscusb.blog-city.com]](<a href=“http://tsscusb.blog-city.com/bears_fail_to_obey_new_jersey_laws.htm]Bears”>http://tsscusb.blog-city.com/bears_fail_to_obey_new_jersey_laws.htm)</p>
<p>We’ll just have to grin and bear it, I guess…</p>
<p>"Hard to believe that states don’t just open up hunting with fees on the take. States are so cash-starved these days that they’re looking into everything but seem to have ignored this potential revenue source. "</p>
<p>Back in the 80’s crash we were living in Denver. Holiday headlines 2 days in a row: Food banks face Unprecidented Shortages… Canada Goose population taking over local parks…</p>
<p>Unfortunately those in charge didn’t see those problems as having one solution…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The problem is that bullets that miss the deer are too likely to kill people in populated areas. In Fairfield County, CT where I used to live, the landscape was largely wooded, and mostly 2 and 4 acre zoning. The deer herd was enormous–but it wasn’t safe to hunt. Maybe they could allow bow hunting, but there probably aren’t enough bow hunters to make a difference. The only natural enemy of the deer was the car. We’ve hit three, over the years–or to put it more accurately, they jumped directly into our cars. A friend had a deer jump INTO the open window of his Ford Explorer on Main Street in downtown Ridgefield, if anyone is familiar with that town. Someone else I know heard their door knocker–opened the front door to discover a deer standing on the front porch, eating the wreath attached to the knocker. They are amazingly bold.</p>