Stephanne: Reformed id read by Stephanie Payne and Daryl Radajak, a conversation we shared when Daryl was chief of wildlife over a decade ago. Written by Stephanie with facts by the chief. Yep. I'm a reformed ident. Habituation. Big word. Even bigger consequences. Is this a word you know? Maybe. I guarantee you know what it means. Let's try another. Anthropomorphism. Holy crap, she's on a roll today with those stupid big words, right? Give me just a moment and I'll tell you a little about what those words are. My hopes are that I will strike a nerve. One that I know is highly sensitive with my friend, Chief, and he'll regale some of the tales of what he has seen, the damage that we cause because of these two words. Let's start with the longer one, shall we? Anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism. Does that help? Picture in your head Yogi the Bear. He walked on his two back legs. He wore a hat and a tie. He spoke to his little buddy Boo Boo. He plotted and hatched half baked schemes to outsmart the ranger and the guests. He has been anthropomorphized. We gave human traits to a non-human entity. The only thing that Yogi did in a relatively bear like fashion was steal picnic baskets. Ironically, in all of my childhood, I can't remember even once when Yogi grabbed one of the visitors to his park and chewed on their leg, or charged them, or scared them so bad that a stream of warmth flowed down the interior leg of their pants. Heck, I don't even remember a bluff charge. The one thing Yogi did that we wish was always the case in real life, he ran away from humans, terrified to get caught. Now that other word habituation. Habituation is when we provide the means for wild animals to learn that humans are really scary. People think it's cute. I mean, heck, isn't it bragworthy to say that you have grizzlies that eat on your porch? how about you go into the wild and you live for a half a year among and with the grizzlies? I mean, talk about bragging rights, right? or How about those misguided humans that think wildlife are so stinking cute that they need to be cuddled and turned into pets? Sadly, to attain this goal, the easy way to lure said wildlife is with food. Blessed, it's just hungry. Let's leave it some dog chow. It's a wild animal. Wild. You want to do it favors? Try leaving it alone and letting it retain its fear of people and staying wild. You like freedom, right? Why would you steal their freedom out of a sense of helping? What so many don't realize is that it's not just freedom that they're taking from the animal. Too often, it's the animal's life itself. Why? Sheer selfishness. I can go on rabid tirades about both of these words. I can cuss up a storm, stomp my feet, raise my voice, and you know what I hear from the recipient of my tirade? But it's just so cute. Yeah, well, duh. It's a giant fuzzy animated version of the fluffy thing you slept with as a kid. But for the love of all that is good and green, stop being so selfish. So before I go off the deep end, where I am constantly threatening to dive anyhow. I'm going to hand this blog over to the chief. You know why? Because he knows. He knows what it's like to say, we have to put that bear down. It's been too habituated and we can't release it back into the wild. Yeah, he's made those tough calls. Ones that we, the bunny loving fern cuddling people, would freak out if we had to make. A long time ago, I was a habituator. Maybe not a serial habituator, but I still had that adult like mindset that I was doing good. Over time and with education on the reality of things, I have been reformed. But instead of me ranting on endlessly, let him tell you. Chief, care to enlighten?

Daryl: Well, at least I don't have to worry about you sugarcoating anything now, Stephanie, do I? Okay, here goes. There are not many aspects of my job that I dislike, but there is one aspect I absolutely despise. It's when our guys have to clean up the often unnecessary and always innocent casualties of ignorance. In this case, that ignorance is the habituation of our wildlife. First off, I must stress that ignorance is usually, although not always, caused by a lack of information. And it's up to us as wildlife professionals to do our part to make sure you guys have the information you need to make good decisions when it comes to wildlife. Secondly, Notice how wildlife is spelled? It's W I L D L I F E Hint hint notice the wild. Believe it or not, a wild animal's life's best spent in the wild. Makes sense, doesn't it? But why? It's really quite simple. In almost all cases, The further away a wild animal is from man or humans, the longer it lives. This is because we introduce all sorts of man-made threats that the animal doesn't normally encounter. From the obvious, such as vehicle strikes and poaching, to the not so obvious. Such as disease introduction and modification of behavior, animals in general do not fare well in our midst. Knowing this, one realizes killing them with kindness is a concept that is surely grounded around the habituation of animals. Though folks may believe they are helping animals by feeding them, in truth, they may be doing them more harm than good. So When we say we mean it, This not only means directly feeding wildlife, but also indirectly feeding them by allowing them access to food or garbage. Trust me, it's not because we like being party poopers. Rather, it's because we love our wildlife. By feeding wild animals, we often create situations that put their lives in jeopardy. Though there are thousands of instances and scenarios I can describe, there's one that stands out since it's so pertinent to the story. And it just so happens to involve a bear. I'm sure you've seen photos of a similar situation where a bear has tried getting into some garbage. We had a situation in the lovely town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where a bear got a plastic bucket stuck on its head. An officer was called in. and had to remove that bucket or else that bear would have wandered around aimlessly, probably suffering a slow, painful death. That's just one instance of us cleaning up after people who inadvertently end up hurting wildlife. before anyone gets too upset, that bear story had a happy ending. The officer was able to sedate the bear and remove the bucket off its head. The bear lived a longer and much happier life after that incident. And the officer did an absolutely incredible job in saving that bear's life. Unfortunately, not all stories have a happy ending. Oftentimes we are called when it's too late. Either the animal has already succumbed, or even worse, we have to make the gut-wrenching decision when an animal cannot be released. And in those dreadful situations, we absolutely hate our job. Be mindful of our wildlife and enjoy the outdoors. And just so you know, it's not chief, it's just Daryl.