Two stories appeared in succession on my news feed today, and there was something about the two of them appearing in such close proximity that struck a nerve—something like the pairing of two flavors that don’t belong together, only with fingernail-on-the-chalkboard overtones.
One story was about a traffic accident on a bridge in which a baby was ejected from a car and into the Maryland bay. The other story was about a Colorado woman who was killed and partially eaten by a bear and her cubs while walking her dogs. The baby was apparently rescued, although there was no word at the time on the infant’s condition. And the bear and both of her cubs were tracked down and “euthanized” on the outside chance they might have acquired a taste for human flesh.
We should be happy for the baby and grateful that the bears are no longer a potential danger. However, if you put these two stories side-by-side, and then think about them in terms of how the risk to human life is being dealt with (or not dealt with, as it were) in each case, there is a glaring disconnect that is difficult to ignore, one that shines a light deep into the expanding glacial fissure separating civilized humans and wild nature.
Bear attacks are extremely rare. And people actually dying from bear attack are even rarer: there were only four in the whole of US and Canada in 2020. Car accidents, on the other hand, happen with the dizzying frequency of one every five and a half seconds in the US, with more than 100 deaths each day. In Colorado, the bear and her two cubs were immediately killed to prevent future deaths. In Maryland, the wrecked cars were removed from the bridge, and any damage to the guardrail will be repaired so that traffic can proceed as usual.
For wild animals, there is apparently no level of risk that is acceptable, but ejecting an occasional infant off a bridge is just the price we pay for progress.
