black bear

Sleeping Bear. It’s our home, the namesake of our national park. We delight in living here, on the edge of the wild. But when a black bear emerges from hibernation and crosses our privacy thresholds, breaks into our shops, drags our dumpster trash through the village, eats our chickens, and leaves paw prints on our windows, do we suddenly fear it? Do we condemn its right to live amongst us? Do we breathe a collective sigh of relief when the authorities set traps and take the bear away? This may be the land of the sleeping bear, but only so long as it sleeps, we tell ourselves. When it wakes, we must remind the bear that this is our land now. Sun editor Jacob Wheeler asks whether we can coexist with bears in the cover story for our May 16 edition—several weeks after a 450-500-pound bear broke into the local chocolate shop, devoured a 50-pound bag of sugar and was later trapped and relocated by the DNR.