Bacon vs. Bears

I'm going up to Bella Coola for a few days, so when I saw the fiece-looking Grizzly bear on the front page of Saturday's Vancouver Sun and the headline "Grizzly attacks plague central coast" I had to pick it up. Bella Coola is definitely central coast and as it turns out the entire article focused on Bella Coola. I hope you are as shocked as I was when you read the following story:

"Instead of going after the bears, he (Gary Shelton, a long-time Bella Coola Valley resident and author of three best-selling books on bear attacks) said, the government tells people what to do. 'I'm not supposed to feed my dog on my porch, we can't have bird feeders, you can't cook bacon on Saturday morning with the window open.'

'This is bullshit. People have a right out here to live as they want to live. At no time in history have grizzly bears and humans ever lived together in any kind of complacency. It's ridiculous.'"

I really felt for him. Not being able to feed one's dog on the porch has got to be a major PITA. And I could never live without my bird feeder, so I totally know where he's coming from on that one. But just imagining not being able to cook bacon on Saturday morning with the window open, that's when I lost. How dare those Grizzly bears confine the smell of bacon to our homes! Bullshit is right.