Editor:
I benefited from university instruction from wildlife specialists. I love black bears, from a distance, and agree that it is wise to include them in a balanced ecology within our national forests. I am uncomfortable, however, with some naive precepts of Griffin Mancuso’s article on our local black bear incursions (“Big Backyard Visitors,” Oct. 15, 2026).
Black bears are intelligent and learn what they can get away with. When I was young, black bears carefully taught their cubs to stay away from and hide from humans. The bear’s caution was because of more human hunters, but now local bears have learned that hunting does not occur on the outskirts of, or within, cities.
Eureka and Arcata have been tract house cities for over a century; houses built with glass doors and windows easily broken into by bears. I am 75 now, but when young, I bought a home in the city of Arcata, because of city utilities and sanitary garbage pickup; I did not have to pay to build a fort against bears. I am too old to work now and am on a fixed income. Given the propensity of bears to make cubs in abundance, bear aggression will certainly now grow until not just pets will be eaten. Hunger will drive overpopulated bears to take greater risks. Once the bears begin regularly breaking into Arcata and Eureka homes, and eating human children and the elderly, the human backlash will be harsh. Then panic driven humans will kill bears with abandon, an act that will make things worse. When a mother bear is killed, there is nobody left to teach the cubs safe limits.
The prudent answer is long known. Our cities need to authorize and hire professional hunters to kill only raider bears. The bear mothers will again teach cubs proper limits.
John E. Hendricks, Arcata
This article appears in The Eureka Chinatown Monument.
