"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius." - Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius

I was taking a dish to the sink, (really) and looked outside. Oh, another moose. ANOTHER MOOSE! I did quite a double-take as I realized that the eight hundred pounds of muscle and fur was out there, close enough to touch if I opened the window. She's shown eating the ornamental plants that surround the house. Apparently our house is known as the "Moose Salad Bar."

A couple of news stories caught my eye this week, primarily because they were so close to one another, but I haven’t heard anyone make the connection. I’ll have a go at it. Stay with me, this does have an Alaska angle.

Story #1: Several scientists are complaining that the government wants to de-list the grizzly bear from the endangered species list in Yellowstone National Park. No doubt that pic-a-nic baskets everywhere are trembling in sweaty fear.

Story #2: There’s a coyote loose in Central Park, in New York City. They’re trying to catch the coyote (along with his stash of anvils and ACME products, no doubt) and probably deport him or her to some desert to chase roadrunners.

Okay, here’s how they come together. Grizzly bears (ursus arctos eatus peoplus) aren’t endangered. There are more grizzly bears in Alaska than people who live in Fairbanks. You need extra grizzly bears? We got ‘em here. There are only several hundred in Yellowstone, so, apparently something that’s plentiful in one place can be “threatened” in another.

Which brings me to the coyote. I’m assuming that there aren’t hundreds of coyotes (and not the renowned actor Peter Coyote, but the furry four legged canis hungrius anvilus) living in Central Park. If there were, they probably would have eaten Sheryl Crow when she did the big concert there, which certainly would have boosted ratings. By my reading of the logic of the government, this urban coyote should be categorized as “threatened” and hence protected by the endangered species act in Central Park. They need to bring this coyote mates, food, and build it a three-bedroom house.

I also know that the historic range of the grizzly bear extended into the New York City local area. San Francisco and Chicago, too, are within that range.

Let’s reintroduce the grizzly bear to New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago. I realize that that might produce a hardship on some of the residents, but keep in mind if you annoy a member of an endangered species; it is allowed by federal law to eat your liver. On top of that there might even be a fine.

Once the reintroduction of coyotes and grizzly bears throughout the metropolitan areas of the United States is complete, we should probably reintroduce smallpox. Smallpox is the ultimate endangered critter, since it only exists in labs in the US and USSR Russia. I get giddy when I think of what species could we reintroduce next. Malaria?

The next challenge would be to pick and choose which era to represent. Since almost every place on the planet has changed dramatically over the course of the 10,000 or so years since the last ice age, we’d have to choose carefully. Do we want to cut down Sequoia National Park, so it looks like it did 15000 years ago? That would be preserving the environment that presumably predates man messing with it, so it might be the best choice. If we go that way we can all have nice, solid wood tables. Or we could turn those big suckers into enough matchsticks to keep us in matches for the next 10,000 years.

I suppose it’s easy for me sitting up here in the wilds of Alaska to point out how the environment of urban life three thousand miles away should be managed. Thank heavens that those in urban areas thousands of miles away don’t try to manage ours . . . oh, wait . . .