Just a comment on Nora's talk on the chances one takes of getting eaten in
the wilds.  I too have spent some time in the woods.  Not much around
grizzleys (I did meet one head on in Banff once while cruising on a
motorcycle -- by the time the adrenalin kicked in I was around the corner
and could stop and have the shakes on the side of the road) but our black
bears and cougars are sometimes known to get a bit fiesty.  My point is, I
seldom went armed but recently have begun to reconsider and it is not a
concern with the four-legged critters.

Our problem with dangerous wildlife is most of us will talk out of one side
of our mouth about sharing the planet but we really mean sharing it like we
did the west with the Indians.  They can have all of that dry, useless land
over there...oops, there's gold there, then they'll have to move.  Well if
we can do that to fellow human beings, what chance does a shark, wolf,
bear,etc. have.  Before everyone thinks my heart bleeds over, I also see G.
Poppe's point.  In this state they have been very busy trying to reintroduce
the wolf.  A creature that was purposefully killed off because of its real
and imagined predation on cattle.  Well, our local ranchers are less than
happy about sharing the range with these "newcomers."  And sure enough,
these great looking, romantic, old-time denizens of the west have found,
like their ancestors before them, that cattle make pretty good prey.  So the
battle goes on.  The ocean has withstood our attempts to over-graze, pave,
strip, over-fish, whatever because it is so immense and until recently we
lacked the technology and numbers  to really do serious damage.  Well, that
corner has been turned and the next 50 years will see some very critical
decisions forced upon us in this realm.  Shell collecting may get a bit
tougher.  I threw that in just to make sure I stayed within the "shell"
perimeters of the list.

Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA