Turning grizzlies loose

“Grizzly plan could continue on with new option” headlines a story in the July 18 Spokesman-Review. Over and over it speaks of “bringing back grizzly bears.” I was raised in one of the Okanogan County areas considered to be prime country for “experimental population” for grizzly bears.

For 80-plus years I have known that there were no grizzlies in our mountains. I’m an “old timer” now, but the “old timers” of my youth informed me that the “old timers” of their youth knew there were no grizzlies in their childhood. So now, the modern-day pushers of grizzly bears dare to insist that they should be brought back! Brought back from when?

Brought back, I guess, from the days of yore when the Hudson Bay stores – if there ever were any up there – traded for beaver pelts and grizzly hides. (Oh yeah – and maybe a few Sasquatch as long as we’re talking nonsense.)

Seriously, I still own property on which I roamed unarmed and unworried as a kid up there. It’s fairly near where wolves treed a young gal a few days ago. So now, the supposed “nature lovers” who actually know little about it want to turn grizzles loose on us too.

Ken Campbell

Deer Park