From the Panhandle: North Idaho Blog
Meandering Moose and Bothersome Bears: the Human/Wildlife Interface in Bonner County
By Cate Huisman, 1-22-11
Moose in a south Sandpoint neighborhood. The mailman warned that mail would not be delivered to any house with a moose between its mailbox and the street.
Spokane’s weekly newspaper the Northwest Inlander reported toward the end of last year that neighboring Bonner County, Idaho, had had 740 more nuisance bear complaints for 2010 than any other county in Idaho. According to Sandpoint’s local paper, the Bonner County Bee, the county had a total for the year of 770 calls, while the three counties to the south—Kootenai, Shoshone, and Benewah—had just 27 combined.
We in the panhandle seem to be a perennial problem population with respect to large wild animals. Moose have been wandering into Sandpoint for the past three winters, and bears seem to visit rural dwellers frequently, with the rare foray into town. Fish & Game and law enforcement continuously try to educate the populace about how best to interact with these animals, and they have consistently decried homeowners’ efforts to feed the wild visitors.
It isn’t as if we have more people here (Coeur d’Alene, in Kootenai County, has far more people than all of Bonner County’s cities combined) or fewer bears (there’s plenty of bear habitat to the south). But for some reason, up here we have felt more inspired to interact with our wild inhabitants than our neighbors to the south have.
Given these figures, Idaho Fish & Game has encouraged Bonner County’s commissioners to pass an ordinance outlawing the feeding of wildlife. News of this suggestion was picked up not only by the local papers in Sandpoint, Priest River, and Coeur d’Alene—the Idaho Conservation League noticed as well, as did local publications as close as British Columbia and as distant as Texas and even the national publication Field & Stream.
Although the commissioners indicated they would consider the proposal, there was some reluctance to devote county law enforcement resources to the cause. As of this posting, it has yet to appear on their agenda.
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