Bears aren’t people, wolves aren’t loving

To the editor:

I am never surprised when urban or former urban people anthropomorphize animals (giving animals human traits that do not exist), but when an Alaska bear guide who claims to have been guiding 43 years does so, it really makes one wonder.

In the article he wrote for the Anchorage Daily News, he claims that predator control demeans us “all.” I would take the opposite viewpoint.

The guide tries to explain all the similar qualities that bears have that compare favorably to humans. Having lived around bears while living in the very rural Alaska Bush for years, I would propose that, in fact, bears exhibit mostly the most base and vile aspects of human nature, the ones best avoided and the very traits that civilization and religion have tried to stamp out of the human population for centuries.

Bears only live to eat, and they eat animals alive when given the chance. The only reason fake and contrived bear zoos like McNeil River — or increasingly the Kenai River or even Campbell Creek — exist is because there are so many salmon there that the greedy ever-hungry bears focus completely on their food supply as usual, avoiding their typical wildlife destruction of baby moose and caribou calves and any other editable substance of any kind they can find.

When bears do not have a constant food source, they turn to whatever is available, and this includes valuable livestock, edible game animals (more important than ever in a dicey, potentially unreliable and depression-type economy) and even humans. When humans anthropomorphize bears, or any predatory animal over long periods, and the bears stop fearing the apex top predator — humans — we also become prey. You don’t need to be a biologist to see this, just search the Web.

Pretending that animals have human traits is a dangerous road to travel for human civilization and we can see the destructive effects worldwide if we follow the misguided, extreme, protective efforts of animal anthropomorphizes and Disney propagandizers.

Myself and many others do not see grizzly bears as “cool,” as the guide states, or “magnificent,” as these are contrived and conditioned mental constructs and fantasy that takes the form of religion by an extreme minority of misguided animal lovers and some hunters.

Bears and wolves are in reality the gang thugs of the woods and tundra. Wolves do not just eat the sick and unhealthy, but chase perfectly healthy caribou until they are exhausted with tongues hanging out, then they bite off the tongues of caribou. This is repeated many times and the caribou bleed to death. Wolves have been known to kill many caribou in this manner and eat only the tongue. This is documented in the book “Alaska’s Wolf Man,” written about an Alaska professional predator control agent who lived in the early part of the 20th century.

Just like today when we blame the victim more often than we blame criminals and make up all kinds of vapid excuses for criminal behavior, this sickness of mind and sprit has now invaded the minds of citizens who know no better or have a personal agenda rooted in myth and lies.

Just because these two diverse groups of hunters and wildlife watchers spend a lot of money in Alaska does not change the viewpoint of many, many millions of people. Many of us are fed up by the pied piper animal psychotics that constantly try to convince us that bears are like humans, wolves are loving, sharks seldom bite and whales are god-like.

As a lifelong naturalist, wilderness dweller, hunter, conservationist and having an extended Alaskan family that has thousands of years of history and bear experience here, I personally do not buy any of it.

Mike Robinson

Wasilla