news-record.com

With the Triad approaching bear hysteria, pet owners should take care not to let their dogs wander after dark.

Small dogs could be eaten by bears, and large ones could be mistaken for bears. It wouldn't do to frighten neighbors and have police or wildlife officers summoned because someone's English sheep dog is prowling around in the shadows and making grizzly, growly, grunting sounds.

All the excitement about bears this summer has entranced some area residents and put others on edge. Sightings are increasing, naturalists say, because bear populations in the mountains have grown, leading some to look for food at lower elevations. And, maybe, we haven't seen anything yet.

"We're due for a mass exodus from the Smokies," Great Smoky Mountains National Park biologist Kim Delozier told News & Record sports columnist Ed Hardin.

An exodus? Does this mean bears will stow away in the baggage compartments of buses carrying gamblers home from the Cherokee casino? Or "borrow" RVs left unattended at park campsites?

Perhaps bears really aren't that clever. Otherwise, they'd stay out of cities where police officers are as likely to shoot them as find better ways to remove them from residential areas.

Bears don't belong in housing developments but can't seem to stop lumbering into backyards, where free meals are available as easily as knocking over a trash container or catching a Dachshund. They normally aren't aggressive, but the fact is they are bigger and potentially more dangerous than the average dog. If they feel threatened, they can hurt someone.

Maybe the best thing people can do is let nature take its course. Bears that move down from the mountains might move back up again when they find lowland life isn't so appealing after all. A bear that hangs around needs to be removed by wildlife professionals, but most probably are just passing through and ought to be left alone.

People shouldn't let their dogs roam at night anyway. They can get into more kinds of trouble than bear trouble, and very often do.