One brown moose, munching on a lily. Two black ravens looking pretty silly. Thus begins the book that’s topped my reading list recently.

If it sounds a little simplistic, well, it should. The book is Alaska 123, a colors and numbers book based on Alaska fauna that I read to my daughter most nights before her bedtime (Thanks, Best Beginnings!). It’s her favorite book, and despite the caveats I feel compelled to add (“Caribou aren’t really purple”) I enjoy reading it to her. I wouldn’t be a new parent, though, without finding some vague neurosis to attach to almost everything, and Alaska 123 doesn’t get a pass.

Besides the questionably-tinged caribou and the “silly” handle for the ravens, there are a few other anthropomorphizing touches, including the biologically improbable “Nine golden grizzlies having lots of fun” (bears are solitary creatures, and are more likely to kill a cub than frolic with it) and the downright over the top “Eight white bears waving goodbye” (though, come to think of it, Alaska’s polar bears do seem to be locked in a long and permanent goodbye…). Am I raising my daughter with the same old conceptions of big wildlife as primarily cuddly furry things—conceptions I think of as belonging to urban (and out of touch) Outsiders? Is this the beginning of creeping Bambi-ism?

It’s not, of course, and this would be a good time to point out that none of this should be taken as a serious critique of the author and illustrator, Shannon Cartwright, who possesses far more Alaska Bush cred than I ever will (and that if you’ve been unable to detect the slight tongue-in-cheek overtones thus far, you might consider moving on to the next article now).

But those questions about what unwitting lessons you’re teaching your child are hard to completely ignore as a parent most times, and all but impossible when sizeable chunks of data about public opinion make the headline. “What do I think of this?” suddenly shares space with “What will my kid think of this?”

That was certainly the case with the recently released report on Anchorage residents’ attitudes about wildlife. One brown moose munching on a lily? How about dozens of brown moose snarling traffic each year?

In case you missed it, this report was commissioned by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game after a series of bear attacks in 2008 launched a public debate over whether—and how—to control wildlife within the Anchorage Bowl. A Virginia-based consulting company polled about 1,200 Anchorage residents over the phone. You can view the nearly 300-page document that resulted online, but the results were about what you’d expect. We like having wildlife in the city, but we also find it enough of a hassle that we don’t really want more.

It was this particular nugget, though, from the executive summary, that grabbed my attention:

“Although residents, for the most part, think it is acceptable to have bears in Far North Bicentennial Park, majorities nonetheless support legal regulated hunting of bears to control their populations in the park.” (Currently, there’s a limited moose hunt in Anchorage, but not one for bears.) But at the same time, “A majority of Anchorage residents oppose having wildlife authorities destroy some black or brown bears in Anchorage every year to reduce the population…”

In other words, Anchorage residents would rather their neighbors be the ones shooting bears within city limits than trained public servants.

Maybe that makes a certain amount of sense. For one thing, the meat of a bear taken by a hunter would be salvaged. And it would mean hunting opportunities closer to home (though probably only for a few lucky lottery winners).

Certainly it’s likely to spur discussion of such a hunt, although a Fish and Game spokesman told the ADN’s Kyle Hopkins that, “We don't just do a poll and then make rules based on that."

I can’t help though but hearken back to my own childhood in rural upstate New York. Even though our land was posted, the woods became off-limits for us during the most beautiful parts of fall because of deer-hunting season. The reason? Primarily a fear that poorly trained hunters flocking upstate from New York City and thinking every patch of trees they saw was raw wilderness would be reckless, dangerous shots. I’d never thought to check into that notion until now, but a quick google search reveals it’s grounded in some reality. In 2008 a Queens man hunting in the Catskills was charged with manslaughter after one of his rounds hit and killed a 16-month-old in the kitchen of mobile home. In fact, while solid and directly comparable statistics are hard to come by, hunting accidents appear to far outnumber bear attacks as a cause of death.

But the point of all this is not that a hunt is a bad idea (though more stringent qualifications for those hunters might be a good idea).

The point is that there are simply no easy answers.

Allowing the population of brown and black bears to grow unfettered will lead to more bear-human encounters, which means more risk that one of them will end badly. Allowing hunters to go after bears in what amounts to our collective backyard will lead to high-powered rifles being discharged near homes, which means more risk that a shot will end badly.

Inevitably, this discussion will end up in the laps of public servants, whether the mayor, the Anchorage Assembly, Fish and Game, or the Board of Game.

It’s reasonable to expect that they have public safety in mind, but we shouldn’t expect those public officials to be public actuaries, whittling risk down to nothing. If we do, we’ll get timid, cover-your-ass type policies calculated to yield an impression of safety—an impression that’ll be a false one.

Better to go into this decision-making process with our eyes wide open, to know what our chances are, and take them.

krestia.degeorge@anchoragepress.com