Grizzly Deer
Grizzly bear hunting debated
Wow, an animal that we have brought back from the brink of extinction is doing good again, so we should go back to killing it!
Humans removed the natural predator of the deer, and now we have to step in an hunt it. Deer is a game animal which people kill and eat. There is also a lot of deer around, but 600 bears does not make me think we should start hunting it again. But then again lets hear what the locals have to say on this.
"When they start interfering with your livelihood, there
are too many of them," said Gus Vaile, a Montana cattle rancher who last year
lost a handful of cows and calves to grizzlies.
Gus I am sure has a big problem with the bears, and his first name. But I have never really figured out why people have not come up with a bear friendly ways to keep them off their land. Probably cost. But then again, the grizzly bear brings big bucks to a lot of national parks!
John Emmerich, assistant wildlife division chief with the
Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said grizzlies are less popular with those who
live near them while "people that don't live here think they're the greatest
thing since sliced bread."
I can see if there was a huge number of bears killing humans and livestock that might be a problem. But when the number of these bears in Yellowstone goes from 160-600 in 30 years, that does not mean that they are going to have a huge comeback.
Hunting does bring some major money for the states, and can be highly regulated, however I do not think it is time to hunt this bear.
posted by Jonathan @ 3:03 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
Jon, you are right. Allowing hunting of the grizzly would be a bad idea.
This is another situation where locals don't know best how to deal with the natural resources of their area. If left to the starving locals, natural treasures would lose to human "need" every time. Just look at Alaska--people there want oil drilling in ANWR. Ted Stevens practically cried on the Senate floor! I think he would dig the oil up with his bare hands if he could.
There is no reason for people to be living where Gus lives and trying to make a living raising vulnerable livestock. Grizzlies are part of the deal if you live near Yellowstone. People who don't like it should go elsewhere, not push for the eradication of a species that they find troublesome.
And 600 is not that many! The article talks about thousands of people clamoring to shoot a grizzly if it becomes legal. How can that demand ever be met by such a tiny supply?
I know Gus and others wish we lived in a time when we didn't know the impact we had on the environment, but we don't: We know full well that we can hunt the grizzly to extinction if we make it legal. We've hunted species to extinction before, but we didn't know what we were doing. That's no excuse now.
I'm not saying we should hunt them. But how many tags are they allowing? 10? 100? Richard just because there is thousands that are looking to hunt doesn't mean they will all get tags. All those names go into a lottery, the winners get the tags. The article said it looks like only problem bears would be killed, not open season on all. I don't know if it's time to start hunting, we probably need a better indicator of long term stability. Also, bears are a predator, so the numbers are always less than say a deer. We aren't going to see 10,000 grizzlies, and if they ever do allow the hunting, I'm willing to bet it'll never be more than 20, probably closer to 10. So they wouldn't get hunted to extinction, I know people like to think we live in a time where we still hunt things to extiction and DNRs don't know what they are doing but we know what we are doing with hunting.
Jon, mate, you got it all wrong. Hunting the bears for sport is a fookin bad idea, but grizzly venison is some tasty shite. I say if ye could change the law up just a bit to allow for the bears to be eaten, then kill away. Plenty a bears in Scotland, and unless you are seein them dead on the side of the road, you're eatin the meat off their bones at a pub. Judgin from yer post, I reckn' yer a wee bit of an animal lover, a nice contrast from the bit conservative bloke "Gerken". Is that your name mate, or a pseudonym? Bollocks, I pity your mother. In any case, "Gerken", I reck'n you're either a bored 40yr old office employee or a wee bairn of an internet user. Either case, I cant understand one bloody point from your infrequent posts. Maybe its just an American thing.
Well, off to make my rounds on the other blogs. Cheers though Jon, yours is definately one of the best.
One is enough. Two isn't.
An Angry Scotsman
Muff Richardson
Gerken, we do not always know what we are doing. DNR's around the country are really not well funded and cannot always check if people are following the rules. I am sure that many people are killing grizzlies and they do not even know about it.
ps that scotsman nailed you!!1
Gerken--
I don't want to see 10,000 grizzlies. (I don't want to see any, in fact. But then, I don't live in Montana.) I just don't want to see us treat a population of only 600 as an excuse to let people start shooting.
And having the bears, or animals like them, around could be a good thing too. As you mentioned, there are always fewer predators than prey. But predators--pure predators like a grizzly, as opposed to armed predators like human beings--keep the prey population under control. If there were anything in Chicagoland that could kill deer in large numbers without a shotgun or an engine, we wouldn't see them smashing into cars on the road. But reintroducing native predators into a heavily-populated area is too difficult, so we suffer the car accidents and allow hunting rather than having dangerous animals roaming our neighborhoods. If you live in Montana, though...well, I guess dangerous animals are the price you pay for a wide open view.
Please let's get one thing straight, poaching and hunting are two different things. And I'm insulted that you think the two are the same. How many animals where hunting was regulated by DNRs have been hunted to extinction? Do you understand how legal hunting works? You seem to believe if you allow hunting of a type of animals it is like a looney toons cartoon with 1000 people running through the woods looking for bear. Just because an animal is "in season" doesn't mean any idiot with a gun can go out and hunt it. You are only allowed to hunt it if you get a tag, and they only allow so many tags. And every tag doesn't get filled. Look at all my empty deer tags....
PS-I'm not to bothered by someone who uses such elegant grammar like "fookin"
PPS-For our less informed posters a "tag" is a piece of paper you apply for and purchase for the right to hunt an animal. If you are caught hunting or in the posession of a dead animal without one you are a criminal
What we have here, though, is a ridiculously high amount of demand (among hunting types) for something with a ridiculously low supply (grizzly bears). I understand that it's illegal to hunt without a tag. But you've got to ask yourself: Why would we take something where the supply is already so much lower than the demand and allow a "lucky" ten, or twenty, or hundred people to have what everyone else who wants it cannot? Especially when the people who get the tags will then shoot bears, mount them in their homes, and show them off to their friends who didn't get tags--making the demand for the bears that much greater while the supply has been lowered.
All you'll create is a few people happy to have shot a rare creature and a bunch of people who, legal or not, want to shoot one too. At least right now almost no one has shot one. The jealousy alone that legalized grizzly hunting could create could be the end of the bear. (It's not as if this is a species that everyone agrees should be preserved--some of those ranchers would happily eradicate it.) Why would we take that risk?
Let me clear up the misconception, if you read my first post, I believe I said that I wasn't sure it was time to allow hunting. I was just giving some information that a grizzly season doesn't mean free for all killing, that it would be monitored and only allowing what would be safe to the population. I also believe that I said that I agreed with the groups that said we need to make sure this increase in grizzly population has the ability to be a long term success before hunting is allowed.
Oh and I do believe a grizzly is armed...have you seen those claws. :) Actually a year or so ago there was a legal hunt for 1 grizzly that routinely ravaged camp sites in Yellowstone and the guy with the tag went hunting with a rifle, but had a posse with various other firearms in case the grizzly came at them, one shot doesn't always work.
Believe me, I'm familiar with how hard it is to kill a grizzly. I spent two years writing about Lewis and Clark, and the grizzly was one of their biggest fascinations and frustrations. That's why I think it would be such a shame if it were to disappear. So much of what they saw is gone now--the waterfalls, the miles and miles of open prairie, the enormous herds of grazing buffalo. We'd regret it later if we weren't careful in preserving this marvel.
One of my favorite pictures from my L&C career is of a member of the expedition "treed by a bear." Take a look--and tell me if you don't agree that the bear in the woodcut looks like a dog! http://dorgan.senate.gov/students/lewis_and_clark/graphics/bear.jpg
Where's the Rogue Blogger when you need him?
Just because there used to be thousands of grizzlies doesn't mean that the current environment where they are living can sustain much more than 600 grizzlies.
Should that be the case, is it better to have a smaller, healthier population?
Or do raw numbers of bears trump health and well-being?
Having just taken a wildlife techniques class (which i got an "A" in thank you very much :)) and with my major, animal management is probably the most popular topic among my other zoological coleagues. I would say roughly 1/3 of the rest of the zoology majors are active hunters as well as the professors, so lets just debunk any possible thoughts that a zoology major = PETA psycho.
Anyhoot, sorry about my own personal rant. Gerken makes an excellent point. While there are plenty of hunters out there that hunt illegally (or poach if you will), the hunting in this country is very well regulated. However, when it comes to predators, hunting is a bit more tricky. Prey species are somewhat easier because management is SO necessary when numbers get out of control b/c of our past unregulated predator hunting.
It doesn't sound like the grizzly problem is that huge when you're just getting complaints from farmers getting their livestock stolen, as insensitive as that might sound. You also get farmers that complain about cougars stealing a bit of livestock when (as my senior thesis has shown) cougars feed on livestock when their primary prey is few and far between (often by over hunting or habitat loss). So why not look at the big picture here? I can take a guess and say primary prey of grizzlies is not livestock especially when they are omnivores. SO why are grizzlies having trouble finding primary prey? That would probably help us figure out how to control their numbers rather than just straight up hunting them (like people currently are with cougars) but that would take lots of man power, time, and resources and of course money which we all know doesn't always go to environmental causes. So there ya go.
Rusty also makes a good point. Grizzlies have migratory routes that span across states and into Canada. With the extreme amount of habitat loss these animals have endured, we need to evaluate just how many bears the ecosystem can sustain without overpopulation occurring (which i don't believe is happening currently). But i understand the fear that overpopulation may occur (since these guys do eat people), but its important not to panic b/c these guys do not breed like deer do, so its an issue where in depth research is reasonable and may help us figure out just exactly what's going on and how and which type of management can be administered if necessary.
I hope this has helped everyone and makes sense! :)
I have to point out that Richard and I have posted within minutes of each other TWICE now, and I've gone back to see a post ABOVE mine that I never knew was there. Wierd...Richard are you posting right now??
And in response to your lucky few, that scenario happens all the time with a bunch of different animals and we don't see and increase of poaching because of it. You have to remember, most hunters are wilderness and animal lovers. They don't go stir crazy because they can't have something. If there are that many more people wanting to hunt a griz, that just means the few goes up and up and up, which means more programs to help wtih conservation issues. It would actually HELP all the wildlife in the state in the long run.
Gerken, the post right above you sums everything up rather well...a little late on that one.
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