NATURE WATCH : Bearing Down

Few sights on the West Coast are so hideous as stretches of clear-cut timberland on the Olympic Peninsula. Yet the irony is that among those obscene stumps grow wild fruits that support a larger population of black bear than could live off the few naturally occurring meadows and marshes.

Predators, we are often told, are among the most endangered of species. However, recently, some of our protected predatory species have been benefiting from better-enforced laws and, in unforeseen ways, are making a new home even in ravaged landscapes.

A friend recently canceled a family hike in Glacier National Park after hearing that the grizzlies were back and in force.

The Glacier grizzlies, never predictable, are now both surprisingly numerous and increasingly unintimidated by the appearance of humans in their territory.

Glacier National Park is scarcely a ravaged landscape, of course, but coyotes, coyote dogs, wolves, wolf dogs and even cougars have returned to far less likely regions across the country.

Mankind, needless to say, has the capacity to deal any large mammalian species an exterminating blow.

Kenya recently decreed the slaughter of 15,000 elephants (of a world population of only 75,000) because the animals were intruding on farmland.

And yet it can be encouraging for mankind, the ultimate predator, to see that given anything like a fighting chance, some of our fellow predators are quite capable of putting up a good fight for survival.