Returning grizzlies to North Cascades will restore our awe

In response to the April 3 editorial on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and the grizzlies (“Zinke an unexpected ally for Cascade grizzlies,”) I submit the following:

We moderns not only suffer from lack of exposure to wilderness, we suffer from a paucity of awe. As Rob Nixon cogently states in “Living in the Anthropocene,” “By positioning humans as bosses of the biosphere [we] risk confusing power with control, impact with mastery.”

Yes, nature is tender: We can saw down tree giants whose shadows scare us; we can (and do) eradicate animals which, by size or craft, intimidate us with their superiority. Increasingly, we learn that such choices were unwise in their vehemence and their consequences very difficult to mitigate.

Here is a well-studied — more than 20 years — measured plan proposed by experts in the arena of wilderness. It should be implemented.

It is different to walk a trail a live grizzly has walked. That difference is awe.

Dawna Lahti

Edmonds