Thanks for the Fear J.R.

J.R.' Absher's blog got my attention this morning with his post that an aggressive rabid bear had been shot in Maryland. It was attacking a land owner's goat pen, and then it began attacking the house when the land owner yelled to try to shoo it off. Read all about it on J.R.'s blog at the link, above.

Meanwhile, my boss says the fellow that lives one farm over from him in Virginia lost a calf to a bear the week before last.

Bear populations are on the rise all over; we have about 500,000 of them in the lower-48 right now. But rabid bears is something I have never thought about.

I hunt in Maryland. And while I have assimilated the idea of a rabid raccoon or fox (a lot of us have seen them), even a timid Sunday-going-to-meeting bear that has rabies is enough to give me the willies. Honest; it doesn't even have to be aggressive for me to want to get the hell out of the woods.

We've got some rabid coyotes running around too. Nothing like rabid wolves and bears to put a little mystery and sport back into hunting, eh? Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.

.