Editor: I was heartened at the Canada Day parade in Canmore when a mom asked her two young boys to stand and take off their ball caps. When they asked why, she responded that it shows respect for members of the military who were marching by.
Great kudos to this mom – we need more people to be ‘in the moment’ and prompt respectful behaviour in others.
I fear we are seeing signs in Canmore where the act of being respectful is weakening … where individual need (“me first”) is taking over from being part of a community.
Social mores and rules are in place because we decided decades ago to be a collective society, not an individualistic/opportunist society. This is what keeps our community civil. Not all rules always make sense; however, in a collective society individuals do not arbitrarily decide to ignore the rule and do their own thing because “they” want to.
In a collective society, we abide by the rules and bring frustrations or ideas for change to the rules forward to those we elect, who create the rules (another reason to pay attention to the upcoming election).
The recent tragic events surrounding bear 148 and possibly an unborn cub, to me, are a result of the following:
A bear needing to gorge on berries to get fat enough for the winter months (and while they are gorging bears are not as aware … they get “zoned out”).
Berries being available where there are also people, along paths where the light breaks through the trees.
Individuals deciding they do not have to abide by trail and area closure signs for a few weeks while berries are available.
A bear being respectful (bluff charging to say, “you are too close”) but not creating harm … but fear of her changing this approach prompted drastic action.
So to the jogger, the mom who went with her children on their bikes, the girls who took their inflatable rafts under the yellow tape to get to Quarry Lake, the man with his child and dog, and others who have continued to invade the space of bears when there are multiple other areas to hike, ride and float … step back and take a hard look at the impact of your actions to meet your own desire.
I hope you understand that your individual actions have contributed to a likely death sentence for a bear that was not a menace to our town – she was being a good bear.
And to everyone who lives in this town, decide if you want our town to continue to be a mountain town where there is respect for our wildlife neighbours or if you want our town to become like an urban suburb of Calgary – free of bears and other animals.
I hope we want to be a mountain town. If we do, we need to find our voice to make this clear to our families, friends, neighbours and tourists. We need better education and information about being bear aware. We need to carry bear spray on our person. We need to tell elected officials that we want enforcement of our rules (and this includes visitors from other provinces who are frequently parking with left wheels to curb on our downtown streets in yellow zones … talk about “me first” behaviour).
And we need to thank the many other tourists and community residents who are respectful of our town and are contributing it to being a great place for residents, visitors and wildlife to be.
Darcey-Lynn MacArthur,
Canmore
