bia's Oweekeno tribe is a good example of what is happening.  With mutual respect, these people have shared territory and salmon with grizzly bears for centuries.  The people didn't bother the bears and the bears didn't bother the people until a combination of overfishing, and global warming drastically reduced the salmon population.  The people had to resort to store-bought food flown in at great expense, doubling the cost of the food, but the bears had nowhere to turn except to the mobile homes and sheds of the people. (The village long houses had been destroyed by fire in 1935.)  To make the situation worse, logging companies had used pesticides and herbicides which deprived the bears of grubs and plant food,  especially berries.  The first bears killed in late summer were found to have hardly any fat , meaning they were desperate and would not survive the winter.  In all, 14 grizzlies were killed, enough to threaten their existence in the area.  The people did everything they could to save them, even killing a seal and emptying out there freezers to lure the bears away from the village.  The bears were two weak to run or attack the dogs set loose to chase them away and the two species were found sleeping on the same porch on at least one occasion.   Nobody wanted to kill any of the bears.  Only those thought to be dangerous were reluctantly killed by the village's marksman shooting from a distance of just 15 feet.  The children were in tears.
        Americans have to a large extent learned to live with invading raccoons, skunks, possums and to some extent deer, but mountain lions and coyotes moving into town present a more serious challenge.  The Vancouver Sun (Oct 4)  reported four coyote attacks on children in public parks.  An 18-month-old boy was bitten in the face.  A four-year-old girl had the skin broken on her hip.  The other two were described as "nips". In Mesa, AZ, the father of a two-month-old baby was horrified to find a coyote dragging the baby away while he was unloading groceries from the car.  This uncharacteristic behavior has been blamed on people who feed these animals, either deliberately or inadvertently by leaving pet food dishes outside, causing them to lose their natural fear of humans.  Left alone, coyotes will avoid humans and go about their business, mostly killing rodents. Killing coyotes will not get rid of them because others will move in to take their place.  The coyotes are merely adapting to the loss of land to human development.  It seems people should also  make adaptations  such as not leaving  family animals like cats and small dogs out at night and not leaving food dishes outside to attract coyotes.
        Citizens in the area around Phoenix were upset when AZ Game and Fish agents euthanized a black bear who had wandered into an Apache Junction back yard.  The agents weren't happy about it either.  They said they couldn't turn the bear loose during hunting season because a hunter might be harmed by eating a bear who had been tranquilized.  After hunting season was over, they were able to transfer tranquilized bears to more suitable areas.  The influx of bears into residential areas there has been blamed on the severe drought in their usual habitat.

Colorado ends prairie dog shootings: The  Wildlife Commission has "banned recreational hunting of black-tailed prairie dogs" which kills an estimated 250,000 annually. The ban is part of the state's effort to keep the species off the endangered species list.USFWS advises that habitat protection is even more critical than banning the pastime of shooting them for the joy                 back to beginning
       
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