Dangerously domesticated wildlife

Take me to your garbage.

From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary'' in GoLocal24.com

The national attention given to the case of three young bears and their mother living near houses and rooting around in garbage and bird feeders in the tony college town of Hanover, N.H. (home of Dartmouth College) reflects our ambivalence about wild animals. On the one hand, some people wanted the charismatic and unpredictable creatures destroyed: The beasts had become so habituated to living near humans that they presented a possible peril to their human neighbors. On the other hand, many saw them as sort of large pets that were fun to watch.

In the end, wildlife officials moved the three young bears to  wilder northern New Hampshire and continued to look for the mother, who, as of this writing, was still missing. Whether the young bears will be able to survive long in the wilds is unknown.