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Show POINTBLANK LIVING with LIONS — By Peter Friederici It was the woman who said she couldn’t wait until the woods were safe so that she could give up her health club membership and hike the trails again who made me realize how much of a problem we face ini inhabiting the West rather than conquering it: The woman was in the paper because a mountain lion had been hanging around a popular trail just outside town. One man had reported that he was stalked by not one but two lions; another said his curious dog had been injured when a lion took a swipe at it. There’s a leash law in the woods along that trail, but that dog hadn’t been respecting it. a place with grizzly bears. When that chance disappears, the wilds lose a little of their soul, and we are all _ the poorer for it. One of the greatest allures of encountering wild animals is their unpredictability. When an animal is lost from an area thatuaped ay) is replaced by a dull, rock-hard certainty of absence. At a time when special interests dominate politics and public life, it is no surprise that wild places too are compartmentalized into particular uses. For some people they are no more than an extension of the health club, a backdrop for physical fitness. For some they are a storehouse of logs or minerals or livestock forage. For some they are scenery that can increase the price of extravagant new houses. The Game and Fish Department was all too cognizant of cases in recent years when it had gotten into trouble when wildlife acted wild. Ranchers were outraged when elk ate forage that God had intended for cattle. The Department was sued when a young camper was mauled by a black bear in a campground where visitors all too regularly ignored signs telling them not to feed the bears and not to keep food in their tents. A new immigrant from the East even sued when his prized cat was swiped by a coyote; the man said the state hadn’t posted adequate warnings that the outdoors could be dangerous. It was almost a surprise when he lost. So the Department announced that it would hunt and kill the lion that was hanging around too close to town. And the woman who'd joined the health club One of the greatest allures of encountering _ wild animals is their unpredictablity. - When an animal is lost from an area, that unpredictability is replaced by a dull, rock-hard certainty of absence. because the trails were too dangerous was pleased. She was out for blood, she told a local reporter, even though the only drops that had been spilled yet were a few from a slight wound to a dog’s ear. The hunt was a success, for the hunters. They found a lion and killed it. No one could say whether it was the right one. When the news came in the morning paper I found myself thinking about how the word animal comes from the Latin animus, which can mean breath, or spirit, or soul. For humans, I believe, animals are the soul of the landscape. Western landscapes can be beautiful, but they are imbued with spirit when we know that animals are hidden in them. That knowledge lends us a sense of connection to inhabitants who draw their living from the place much more intimately than we do and who are, after all, distant relatives. We don’t need to see the animals to sense this; we just need to feel their presence-ask anyone who has been to Glacier National Park what it feels like to share But all these visions of wild land are reductionist, and anthropocentric, and not a little bit selfish. None of them acknowledge that wild places are the context that holds everything about our human lives. Wild places are where a certain subset of primates came to be human. ~ They're bigger and more mysterious than we can acknowledge or ever know. I would argue that many of us visit wild places because of an inchoate desire to feel that breadth, which is not unconnected to a slight sense of danger. In wild places we ought to shed some of the hubris of being human. We ought to give up for a while our society’s arrogant notion that we can fully shape nature to our needs and desires. THIS IS SO EXCITING! KEN & LINDA LAY, ws MOVING HERE TO MOAB! | BET THEY BUILD A HUGE PALACE ON THE CLIFFS!!! OF COURSE THEY WILL! THOSE PEOPLE HAVE CLASS! THEY'LL PROBABLY BE THE FIRST CLOUDROT OWNERS! RON's) ON oab and | the tuttureatg “@ 2 WITH KEN LAY RUNNING 'MO-RON,' THIS TOWN IS REALLY GOING TO TAKE OFF. WE'LL ALL BE RICH eaeeeeee! et te | BET THEY BUILD A _ SANTA FE-STYLE HOME.. AT LEAST 10,000 SQ FEET. OH | DON'T KNOW.. I'M HOPING FOR A CASTLE AND A MOAT. | JUST HOPE THAT....0H MY GOD... LOOK! IT JUST CAN'T BE! A TRAILER? %. RUINED. |
