The 2nd amendment explained.

Well thanks a lot, miles, too late now. My state's official animal, the Grizzly, is long extinct here. They've all been shot.

And the number one threat!??!?!? BEARS!!!!

I know what you should dress as for Halloween.

Craig C.

Yep, the Rabbit costume is already taken.

At least the brown bear, black bear and mountain lion/cougar/puma populations are rebounding. I have seen all three with in a mile of my house, as well as golden eagles and numerous coyotes. I live on the far edge of town and often walk past that boundary into their domain. I accept the risk of travelling in the wild and wish them to have a place to live too. Fortunately, all of the members of those species whom I have encountered have been more afraid of me, hence they ran away (which is usually when I spot them). I'm not sure I would like a grizzly bear living in the area. I kind of doubt they ever did, but it's not an idea I'm comfortable with.

To be honest, I don't like the mountain lions and coyote so close. A few months ago a pack of coyote was about 1/2 block away, in amongst the houses and from the sound of their calls, I think they had taken prey. There is a mountain lion who is known to travel within a 1/2 mile of my house. He is very bold and won't get out of the way of vehicles traveling on the private property on which I walk. This neighborhood has been here for over 40 years. The school were they recently started informing students and parents what to do if they see a mountain lion has been next to this neighborhood for 30 years.

I'm listening to coyotes howl right now.

Here in AZ I do not know of a single case of a coyote attacking a person. They do come into my neighborhood and have attacked dogs and cats but only if someones pet gets loose or is let out.

Mountain Lions have attacked people but it's rare. Often it's an older weaker lion that goes after a small kid. Around here it's always been in somewhat remote areas or when homes get built in lion country.

Thats odd you've been there 40 years and they just now started hanging around. Is it possible their natural area is being encroached or a bad winter, draught etc. has made their food source scarce?

Down here it is alligators. Between the wild fires, drought and mating season they are all over the place. A local car dealer had one under one of his new bmw's

we lived in AL a few years back and while we were there one of the baldwin county sheriff officers had the fender taken off of his patrol car by an alligator. was the funniest news story i had heard in a while. he honked his horn at the gator like it was gonna say "oh I'm sorry I'm in your way." so it turned and bit the car taking the fender off.

how close are you to the wild fires in south GA? we had smoke covering everything over the weekend. i think they said visibility was down to 1/2 a mile at best because of it.

miles, I don't know about your neck o'the woods, but even the odd bear that comes into town down here, have never attacked anyone. We have at one a year, a time that a bear comes down and climbs into some poor souls tree in front of their house and I mean in city proper.

I'm about 90 miles south of Jacksonville, 10 miles north of Daytona. I'm 2 miles from the ocean so the breeze moves the smoke inland. A couple of mornings it was really heavy for a couple of hours. Of course we had a fire going about a mile south and 4 miles west that if it wasn't for the wind might have been a cause for worry, I'm east of I-95 so that acts as a sorta fire break. They have parts of I-10 closed for a few days due to the smoke, the Georgia fire moved into Fl.

Roy

I've only been here about 9 years. The neighborhood is only a few blocks long buy a few wide and is surrounded on 3.5 sides by open space. To the south, west and east is grazing land, oil fields, farms and vinyards and national forest for 10 miles to the west, 30 miles to the south, and 60 or more miles to the east. The critters have been around since I moved here.

About the time I moved in, they planted many square miles of vineyards 15 or so miles south west on what looked like prime varmit hunting ground, so maybe some of the predators were displaced. Also, we have had a very dry rain season and that may be drawing them down to lower elevations, thus the bulletins from the school. The bold mountain lion has been around for many years, but as far as I know doesn't come into the neighborhood. The coyotes on occasion do and probably find cats. Something has taken at least a few cattle that I know of as close as 2 miles away, but that area is seperated by hills, etc from the neighborhood. One night I was walking in the grazing land, less than 400 feet from the houses, not far from cattle, when a mountain lion roared from a tree stand near the top of a hill that I was walking straight toward. Needless to say, I change direction.

About once or twice a year there are reports of a mountain lion being sited near schools or parks with in a 30-40 mile radius and that does seem to be climbing.

Bears rarely attack people and in AZ are rarely seen. They live primarily in very rugged terrain such as in canyons. In the 30+ years I've been camping all over AZ I have only seen one bear a few years ago. Ya, theres bears at the city dumps up north at times though. About the only time I know a bear will attack is if you cross paths with a mother bear that has cubs nearby.