Ah, those bears

Friday, August 26, 2011

Oh, where is Alfred Lord Tennyson now that we really need him? The author of “The Charge of the Light Brigade” could do wonders with all of the bear sightings we’ve had around Southern New Hampshire recently:

“Bears to the left of us,

“Bears to the right of us,

“Bears in front of us,

“Growled and plundered.”

We’ve always had bears wandering around Southern New Hampshire, always had them plundering bird feeders that shouldn’t be up in the summer anyway. Always.

But not so many.

Doesn’t it seem as if the bear population has, if not exploded, at least grown a bit?

There were bears in downtown Nashua not too long ago, for crying out loud. What were they looking for? The Peddler’s Daughter?

“Aye, Yogi, we’ll be gettin’ us some Guinness, eh?”

And now, pity the poor family from Holland, visiting family, peacefully playing Monopoly on the porch on a fine summer day when who should drop by but ...

If you guessed “A bear!” you’d be right on.

Can you imagine the story they’ll have to tell back in Amsterdam?

“Well, we knew our family would find amusing things for us to see in America, but that seemed a bit much.”

Listen, we love bears. Bears are fun and charming and furry and all kinds of great things, but bears can be dangerous.

Oh, we know: Black bears haven’t killed anybody since Davy Crockett was going around making their lives miserable, but it only takes one, and you don’t want to run into the one it took, so be careful.

And if you’ve still got a bird feeder fully of bird seed in your back yard, for crying out loud, take it down. Guess what bird seed does? It attracts bears.

We don’t see the attraction in bird seed, except to birds, but obviously bears do and when they smell it, they come a’visitin’ and they don’t just eat the seed. They destroy the bird feeder, too, and that will be much to your chagrin.

So, be careful if you see a bear, but to be sure you don’t see a bear, take down your bird feeder.