Erik M said:
that's unsettling. I don't care for their smaller, darker ursine cousins that live behind me now in the eastern coal fields.
That is the glacial period much older, it is the 'historic' borders that are where they lived in the 1800s.
The closest they were to modern Kentucky then was in the present state of Missouri.
Large predators are good for the environment and the people. It keeps people more accepting of arms and keeps them well rounded. California would be a very different place if it still had Grizzly bears and wolves, and people might have to defend themselves from them on a regular basis.
There is some great history regarding the effects of dangerous predators on the population.
The islands of Great Britain and Ireland once were densely populated with wolves. They went extinct in the 1700s.
(Of course Ireland was covered in dense forest until the 1600s, and is today the most deforested part of Europe. It is now pretty much the exact opposite landscape from the days of the druids through the time of the Normans and most of the folklore.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves_in_Great_Britain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_wolf
The loss of predators that can hunt and kill people provides an environment where it is easier to become a nanny state and disarm the people.
Frequently encountered things walking around that can eat people results in carrying weapons for self defense being a virtually undisputed thing.
Even in the Communist Soviet Union it was completely acceptable and commonplace for regular people to have powerful firearms in places with large amounts of brown bears and tigers.
Once you lose the real 'monsters' of an area you lose an important part of human psychology as it relates to freedom and community and individual self preservation.
Or more to the point of the forum as it relates to arms.
Governments like to consolidate power, and hold a monopoly on force.
It is much easier when the only 'monsters' left are other people for governments to convince people that disarmament of the commoner is for their own good.
Governments will argue with a society's need for guns to defend against other people (or especially to stand up to the government, as the founders envisioned) but it is harder to convince the population with the argument that risking being eaten by predators is for their own good.
Losing such predators results in the loss of a very important defender of our freedom and individual independence.
Especially since they typically pose a lower risk to people than other predatory human beings, but excite the imagination, a steadfast sense of self preservation, and a feeling of entitlement to arms in the average person much more.
