Hunters kill charging grizzly, Idaho

[dla]

Glad that sow has been shot. My bet is that she is responsible for 4 attacks this year. She was teaching her cubs some very bad habits.

 

[Pacific_Fork]

I have to disagree with notion that "hunting will change bears attitudes/behavior/aggression". The almighty Jim Shockey is wrong. I actually find hilarity in that statement. Most bears already avoid human interaction. Think of the number of hunters that encounter bears, or have the potential to (close proximity) that are never attacked and on the flip side the bears actually run the opposite way.

We're talking about changing behavior that at a fundamental level is an evolutionary process that has happened over 100s or 1,000s of years. Bears are all of the sudden not going to defend kills, cubs or potentially charge when startled because we killed a tiny percentage of them? We aren't going to change bear behavior by shooting whatever the proposed number was a year (MT 7? ID 1? WY 22?).

Fear is also a learned response, and as said above we aren't killing sows with cubs (or intentionally). Once you get shot you're dead and therefore no more fear response.

I could see this being a reasonable line of thinking if we were going to try and decrease the population by 75%, but that is not and will not ever be the case going forward.

I see your argument, but what’s your thoughts on how you can walk right up to a 350 bull or 220 buck in a park/preserve/neighborhood but get within 1000 yards on the mountain and they see or smell you they ghost? Animals are incredibly smart and adaptable. They learned to fear humans over thousands of years of evolution and in very short order they become like pets in areas off limits to hunting. If a a boar grizzly bear sees two of his buddies get shot he is learning a lesson. To what degree? Neither of us know…

 

[robby denning]

I have to disagree with notion that "hunting will change bears attitudes/behavior/aggression". The almighty Jim Shockey is wrong. I actually find hilarity in that statement. Most bears already avoid human interaction. Think of the number of hunters that encounter bears, or have the potential to (close proximity) that are never attacked and on the flip side the bears actually run the opposite way.

We're talking about changing behavior that at a fundamental level is an evolutionary process that has happened over 100s or 1,000s of years. Bears are all of the sudden not going to defend kills, cubs or potentially charge when startled because we killed a tiny percentage of them? We aren't going to change bear behavior by shooting whatever the proposed number was a year (MT 7? ID 1? WY 22?).

Fear is also a learned response, and as said above we aren't killing sows with cubs (or intentionally). Once you get shot you're dead and therefore no more fear response.

I could see this being a reasonable line of thinking if we were going to try and decrease the population by 75%, but that is not and will not ever be the case going forward.

I think we’re underestimating the intelligence of our predators. We’ve witnessed what happened with the wolves when they went from becoming unhunted to hunted. Within just a few years they became very hard to find. And we probably in no way reduce their population, in fact it may have even grown once to be started hunting them.

I realize this is all anecdotal, including my comments and quoting other hunters.


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[Pacific_Fork]

Left out the wolf scenario, good point Robby.

 

[mntnguide]

I know of places here in western Wyoming you can go see 10+ different bears in a day or more pretty easily this time of year. The population is vast and covers a ton of country. The amount of bears that we were going to be allowed to shoot was 12 that first year i believe... that quota could legitimately be filled in 1 drainage of mountain range in places... wolves, we have been shooting hundreds all over. I feel the wolf version vs grizzly is a very different scenario.

I really don't believe the minimal hunting that would ever be allowed for Grizzlies would do much to change behavior in the majority of areas. There are just to many of them at this point for the extremely minimal number of tags that would be issued. I deal with Grizzlies every year, i have a couple specific ones i would love to go find with a tag in my hand, but I do not believe we will change their behavior nearly as much as we have the wolves.

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[rodney482]

Sucks for the hunters to be in that situation. Sucks even more for the dead bear. Double sucks for the 2 cubs which will most likely not make it to adulthood. Pretty much sucks all around. Needs to be a better balance #allowgrizzhunting

Were they first year cubs?

 

[Kevin Dill]

If every possible bear/man encounter ended as a negative experience for the bear(s) we would eventually see bear behavior move toward avoidance....but not in totality. As I see it, this situation is simply one of too many cowboys and indians trying to occupy the same space. Conflict is going to happen and keep happening. We can't really push back on the bears, so injuries are guaranteed to continue.

I don't have the answer in terms of what's best for all parties. I think that's likely to sort itself out down the road after enough hikers, hunters, kids and photographers get mauled or killed. I'm pretty sure an educated grizzly would tell us there's too many damn people using their area and someone needs to control the human population.

 

[slick]

I think trying to compare a pack animal to a critter that lives a mostly solitary lifestyle is a little apples to oranges.

For example: Pack gets howled in or is on a carcass, etc. 2 get shot, 5 run away. Boom fear response learned. Avoidance strategy learned. Wolves become harder to hunt. Learned.

Grizzly bear feeding on berries in mid September, Grizzly bear hunting elk mid September. Boom. Dead. No fear response learned.

Again, I think a 200+ MD or 400+ elk or whatever number you want to slap on it... that lives its entirety in a park or suburban setting and it's literally born into a reduced fear scenario. It's also a herd animal. The town I reside in has stupid urban deer problems, and they still have a threshold for human interaction where by they aren't comfortable.

Each species has a generalized behavior, and within each species there are individuals that act as an outlier. I may sound like a pompous douche, but I do not and will not ever believe without strong scientific evidence that bears will all of the sudden change their behavior that has favored their existence/reproduction/survival due to a handful of hunting tags.

As I typed this, the only scenario I can see in my head is some of those pockets where bears congregate due to hyperphagia in the fall and food availability ie: mountain sides where army cutworm moths are located by the billions and someone shoots a boar out there. Some may run away from seeing that, others would certainly continue eating as if nothing happen.

Thats not to take away from critters abilities to learn. But I would guess it would only be a handful of bears that get shot at and missed and rocks splatter annually and when there is as many as people on this forum say there are, well that's likely less than 1% of the population.

Happy hunting everyone.

 

[robby denning]

Here's some articles on the subject. It's much like this thread, but a few officials on record saying behaviour could change and one outfitter saying it won't as it's population dependent and population is too high now.

Experts wonder how grizzlies will respond to hunt

The line of thinking goes like this: Hunt grizzly bears and they become fearful of mankind, therefore making it safer for humans to share the landscape with an animal that

www.jhnewsandguide.com

The point about the grizz that are killed are the less secretive ones (or outright aggressive) is what I was referring to when I mentioned Jim Shockey. When Valerie Theoret, and her 10-month-old daughter, Adele were killed a few years back at their Yukon cabin he'd said that had been a problem bear and it needed to be hunted. I can't remember why it wasn't, If someone finds his quote, post it up. My memory is like most peoples': a filter toward my biases

and here's a few more articles from the NRA on the subject with others leaning towards "hunting reduces aggressive bear conflicts:" (I know some of you don't like the NRA, so no need in wasting digital space with that rant, just supplying sources

USFWS, NRA and SCI Appeal Closure of Grizzly Bear Hunt

Groups challenge a federal judge’s ruling to cancel hunts for recovered Yellowstone-area grizzles.

www.nrahlf.org

A Grizzly Double Homicide in the Yukon

Yet another tragedy surrounds a grizzly bear attack, this time on a mother and infant.

www.nrahlf.org

and here is the Sierra Club's position, not surprisingly:

https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/program/documents/Common%20Myths%20Regarding%20Grizzly%20Bear%20Management%20.pdf

 

[slick]

While I certainly don't disagree with lethal removal of problem bears- to me most of the above sounds like damage or human safety concerns where the respective state should be taking measures to kill the conflicting critter...which I don't think most of these hunting tag holders would be targeting.

Thank you for sharing Robby.

 

[robby denning]

While I certainly don't disagree with lethal removal of problem bears- to me most of the above sounds like damage or human safety concerns where the respective state should be taking measures to kill the conflicting critter...which I don't think most of these hunting tag holders would be targeting.

Thank you for sharing Robby.

Sure, but I wouldn’t sell our hunters short. I know in Africa, that’s pretty normal to put the hunters on the problem lions and even elephants.


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[North Idaho Stickbow]

Maybe they’ll have an epic species show down with wolves and all our woes will resolve themselves.

 

[robby denning]

Maybe they’ll have an epic species show down with wolves and all our woes will resolve themselves.

We can dream!


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[Bubsterx1]

Some amusing comments in the comment section of the article.

 

[bluetick78]

If the politics could exit the room, there would be 2 very obvious, distinct answers to the bear vs. man issue in the IP area. Put a moratorium on building, and start hunting the bears. I understand there are economic impacts that come with shutting down development, and some bleeding heart bear huggers that don't live in the area or deal with the bears will get their tender emotions crushed, but the answers are pretty simple. The sow that got shot deserved it. She was a nasty, cranky little b*tch that would chase people unprovoked, stand in the road and bluff charge your truck, and teach her kids to act pretty gangster for no good reason. I'm glad the hunters were prepared for the situation, acted quickly and effectively, and the encounter had the outcome that allows 2 men to return home to their families unharmed. Anyone that wishes this situation should've ended differently doesn't even possess the amount of common sense that the good Lord blessed our president with.

 

[exppi]

There was a fatality in Baker's Hole this spring. Guy fishing stumbled onto a bear guarding a moose. MT FWP killed the bear when it charged them the following day.

Too many damn bears around those parts anymore.

 

[robby denning]

There was a fatality in Baker's Hole this spring. Guy fishing stumbled onto a bear guarding a moose. MT FWP killed the bear when it charged them the following day.

Too many damn bears around those parts anymore.

Heard about that!


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[Wapiti66]

If you want bears to have a fear of people, the bears need to have negative experiences with people…rubber bullets to the the nuts, pepper spray up the nose, stick in the eye…
So, allow harassment of bears by all that feel the urge. You can scare a bear anyway you dare, as long as you don’t cause severe bodily harm. For example you are glassing the neighboring ridge and you see a bear walking along, you can shoot that rock 5’ in front of him and watch him jump. You can sneak up from behind him and blast some big cymbals in his ear. You can blast him with water balloons that smell like Oprahs armpits from your tree stand or any other creative way you can think of. Endless possibilities for Bear Scarin and a sure way to make some YouTube and Instafamous sensations. Obviously there’s gotta be a season, so you can’t sneak into a hibernating bears den and crank AC/DC on your ol boom box. But if they’re not in their winter nap mode, they’re fair game.

Killing a bear doesn’t really teach the bear that’s a mile away any lessons on fearing man. But a 12 gauge slinging rubber bullets into that sow and her Cubs as she
crosses the highway can really learn them all a lesson. If the PETA types get to screaming about it simply tell them it’s for the future safety of the bears and their sustainability. Now it’s time to go Scarin so we can train these bears to avoid the two leggeds.

 

[IDWapiti]

Scratch 3 bears from the pain in the ass list.

sick. plenty of places to hunt if you don't want to del with "pain in the ass" bears.

 

[bluetick78]

sick. plenty of places to hunt if you don't want to del with "pain in the ass" bears.

Neat plan, until you take a step back and realize that this same b*tch bear attacked a jogger and a mountain biker too. Should we just board up the whole area to all recreation? What about all the people that live there? Burn their houses and "relocate" the humans? Nah, just tip the mean bears over and move on with life. Simple, effective and easy.