A different bear experience

Having just read Mike Lynch’s article “Summer bad news for bears” [November/December 2016] about all the black-bear incidents with “no reported injuries to people,” I am struck by the unhappy coincidence of an episode that happened here in Maryland. The headline in the November 17 issue of the Washington Post reads, “Bear mauls woman in Maryland driveway in ‘rarest of rare’ attack.”

It was only a few decades ago that black bears were extirpated here in Maryland and the Maryland Department of Wildlife was selling black-bear stamps to help with their reintroduction in western Maryland. Now it seems that we have a plethora to the point that the bear-hunting season has been extended from western Maryland to middle Maryland, where the culprit mauler was euthanized.

So it seems that Maryland and the Adirondacks have swapped bear stories this year. We would gladly give you folks back the grisly black-bear encounters.

Ajax Eastman, Cockeysville, MD