Bears and Urban Growth

Big bear happenings in the Seattle area. The first article talks about
the bear that was hit by a car on the freeway earlier in the week.
Front-page news in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. On a happier note,
another wandering bear mentioned in the article appears to have been
captured by State wildlife folks and will be tagged and released back
into the wild.

Recently, a bear was shot and accidentally killed with a tranquilizer
in the University District of urban Seattle. Some people think that the
bears are becoming more dangerous to humans because they are moving into
human territory. No, it's the opposite. People are becoming more
dangerous to bears because WE are moving into bear territory. The
article mentions how prime bear habitat is being rapidly developed.
It's primarily for those home-buyers that can't afford to buy in the
high-priced Seattle area and want a "rural" lifestyle.

This is an example of how seemingly unrelated issues can actually be
connected. The tragedy of the bear-human conflict is a direct result of
the economic pressures that are throwing the Seattle housing market
out-of-whack. Again, human issues and animal issues do not exist in
vaccuums.