We can coexist with wolves, bears; we choose to kill them

By Peter Kareiva / Los Angeles Times

Humans have always had an emotional relationship with predators. We both revere and demonize them.

We buy more than 100 million teddy bears annually for our children, while 50,000 real bears are hunted yearly in North America. Cultural fables and fairy tales simultaneously vilify and celebrate predators; from “The Lion King” to the Three Bears to the Big Bad Wolf.

In elementary school, we teach kids about the food chain and how every animal is crucial in maintaining a balanced ecosystem. Predators are often the entry point to understanding ecology for young minds, with an abundance of nature films about sharks, bald eagles, tigers and many more fascinating predators. Somewhere between elementary school and adulthood, we forget what predators teach us and how much we need them.

And it is this nation’s adults who need to reconcile their ideas about predators and decide if we truly want to live with the ones we once attempted to exterminate. Our capacity to erase predators is proven. Our ability to conserve and recover them is equally established. The fundamental question remains: Do we wish to live alongside them?

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-we-can-coexist-with-wolves-bears-we-choose-to-kill-them/