Ticks, Bears, Coyotes, Bobcats and Cougars

We are the world's first indoor species. Humans living in this generation now spend more time indoors than outside. And it's becoming very apparent when talking to children these days.

I frequently get asked about spending a lot of time hunting and fishing in the mountains and about ticks, bears, coyotes, bobcats and cougars. The question usually has something to do with getting attacked by one or getting bitten by a tick or mosquito with malaria, West Nile Virus or the plaque.

The chances of getting attacked by a bear are 1 in 2.1 million. So I like to tell people, "No, I'm not afraid of any of those things, as I already got my turn at that and survived a bear coming in our tent, so I really doubt that something like that would happen again to me, as the odds would be astronomical." I have also walked into a sleeping moose in thick willows nearly hitting him with the end of my fly fishing rod. Countless matches burned removing ticks, the odd encounter with a running bobcat and cougar, and watching hundreds of coyotes leave the scene with a human arrives.

The Chinese are even paying $4000 for a wild bear gallbladder.  It's illegal to sell bear parts in the US, but in case you are wondering why this would fetch such a high price in China, it's been a component of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for thousands of years. The gallbladder has a high concentration of ursodeoxycholic acid, and even modern scientists can't deny its medical properties from non-surgical gallstone treatment to preventing tumor growth. Commonly sold as "bear bile," the gallbladder is dried, ground, placed in capsules, and prescribed to treat everything from the common cold to epilepsy. Although there are bear "farms" where bears are kept in small cages and are "milked" for bile, most consumers prefer bear bile from a wild source.

Now, it pays to use precautions and to be prepared (and to carry bear spray or a defensive load when in bear country making sure you keep your food out of your tent and bear-proofed), but my suburban neighbors would have you believe every time you walk the dog you are at risk of attack, which is just nonsense. Fear of having an automobile accident doesn't keep me from driving to work each day and the individual American driver's odds of dying as a result of an injury sustained in an automobile crash (which include pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists involved in car crashes) come out to about 1 in 100.

So get outside—-ticks, bears, coyotes, bobcats, and cougars aren't likely to kill you, but getting there in a car might.