Air Date: Week of July 17, 1998

LOE's audience weighs in on recent segments on bear hunting, wild fires, Alaska roads, and snake sounds.

Transcript

CURWOOD: And now it's time to hear from you, our listeners.

(Music up and under)

CURWOOD: Andrew Scott of Blanchard, Idaho, hears us on KPBX in Spokane, Washington. He says a recent commentary on the proposed bear hunt in New Hampshire wrongly equated hunters with those people who feel bears are a nuisance that should be gotten rid of.

SCOTT: No hunter in their right mind would ever want to see a bear population brought to extinction. A lot of the recovery of the black bear in North America is directly responsible to hunters' dollars that have been generated through taxes on firearms and other hunting equipment, and many ethical sportsmen, including myself, have paid for that and are proud to see that the black bear populations are recovering.

CURWOOD: Steve Hiltner of Durham, North Carolina, says our interview on Florida wildfires missed an important point. "In Florida's pine forests," he writes, "a distinction must be made between destructive wildfires and the low-level periodic fires that play a vital ecological role. Suppression of all fires leads to fuel buildup, which in turn leads to destructive wildfires."

Last week we spoke with the manager of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska about a Congressional proposal to cut a road through the area. Nancy Zemirah of Aloha, Oregon, who's worked in emergency medical services on the Alaska peninsula and Aleutian Islands, sent us this: "Unless you have been there, you cannot comprehend the isolation. When the weather is bad, there is no transportation out of the villages, particularly those that do not have an airport."

And Thomas Stock of Silver Spring, Maryland, wrote, "I wish the piece would have included the opinions of someone in favor of the road. The interview left me with many more questions than answers. And frankly, if such a road saved even one human life, I would have to say let it be built. On the other hand," he writes, "I simply loved the piece on snake sounds. It brought back a very pleasant memory of an encounter I had with a hognose snake in the company of my father, who was deathly afraid of snakes. He was thoroughly spooked by the hognose's antics, even after I faced the critter down and showed Dad how obsessively the snake plays dead, repeatedly rolling on its back after I'd flip it over."

Let us know what you think about the stories on our program. You can call our listener line any time at 1-800-218-9988. That's 1-800-218-9988. Or e-mail us at LOE@NPR.ORG. Again, that's LOE@NPR.ORG.