Editor,

Bears in backyards.  Bears being relocated.  I never want to see another one of these pictures again.  They make me sad.  Bears come to town because people attract them.  Smelly garbage left in unsecured rollcarts, birdfeeders, hummingbird feeders, ripe fruit left lying around, pet food in backyards, the list goes on.

I live on a North Mesa canyon lot.  The neighbors on either side of me and my family have easily cleaned up a couple of hundred pounds of garbage bears have dragged down behind our houses.  It’s usually obvious where it came from.  I put up a sign on top of the driveway a couple of weeks ago begging neighbors to secure their rollcarts.  It has helped some.  A lot of this garbage though would easily fall into the category of medical waste.  It’s scary.

A neighbor last week showed up in the front yard to apologize when she noticed her garbage had gone missing.  I asked her to please just go away.  She became hysterical and her husband threatened legal action insisting we just were not very neighborly.  Their garage is easily bigger than an average sized home but I guess actually placing their rollcart in it might be too stressful.

I remember a late summer day a decade or so ago sitting at East Park Pool chatting with other North Mesa residents. Several mentioned their hummingbird feeders had been trashed the night before — from Tsikumi up to Redondo a bear had taken out dozens if these deadly little feeders.  Your actions have consequences.  Please take a good look at your yard and see what you might do better.  Please be kind to bears by keeping them wild.