How much of an effect do you think the small number of grizzlies killed by hunters has on deer and moose? Little if any I'd guess. Is it not true that the big male bears actually prey on the smaller ones, therefore actually reducing overall bear predation on deer etc.? Seems to me that grizzlies manage themselves. Apparently the current bear harvest is sustainable (fine), but with few exceptions, not really a tool for managing ungulate populations.
I know a few and am acquainted to several hunters that have taken grizzlies. None of them had any intention of taking the meat. A few of them had regrets and said they'd never shoot another.
I think it's a fair question to ask, "why pull the trigger ?"
It differs in different locations..however the lower Bella Coola valley..from McCall flats to the ocean has in excess of 150 extra bears..above the optimum carrying capacity..eventually a human death..then 150 grizzlies will be shot and taken to the dump.
Other areas ie 6..29....6..28 also exceeded the ideal population density..the Cariboo has as many grizzlies now as it did 35 years ago..some areas like Chilco lake has stupid crazy density..and no tags? Seriously?
We are seeing bears..26...27..28..29...30 years old being harvested..routinely..like every year for the past 4..5 years..in the Cariboo mts"
Along the central coast the harvesting has been dropping with the confrontations...the numbers were always high..and d with loss of respect has come some cranky boars.hopefully a couple of hunters will post their confrontations..
Srupp
I'd agree. I'll bet if you look at the number there are far more moose killed by trains and deer killed by cars than by grizzly bears, but I don't see anyone here volunteering to go "control" any train engines.
The whole notion that we are some kind of self appointed "White Knights" with a God-given right to save ungulates from predators seems a little overblown and obviously self serving. After all, they are our deer and moose aren't they? They don't belong to the damn bears and wolves.
Fear is a normal survival requirement of every creature and almost any animal pursued will be fear full of the unknown . Some animals once maturity has been reached show what we perceive as little fear but you can bet your bottom dollar that they have fear hardwired into them and have used that hardwired fear to survive.
If it was as simplistic as only survivors of attacks have fear then deer bunnies blackbears , grizzly,jackalopes etc would not show fear to something that hasn't tried to harm them.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
I'm trying to leave my own views out of the discussion (partially because they aren't either fully crystallized or based on realistic or fully informed notions)...but I think that there is a philosophical argument in support of predator control in that we have such a tremendous impact on the ecosystem and the ungulate population and, in some way then, it's our obligation to bring a bit of balance back to the ecosystem by (similarly?) decimating (or "impacting" if we want to use a nicer word) the predator population.
Mind you, I also believe the ecosystem is more complex that we can truly account for or control, but I can see the point of that argument. Buuuuuut, I fully understand people saying "yeah, I don't want to shoot it because I'm not going to eat it." It may be considered self-serving if the aforementioned philosophical argument is fully grounded in sound biology, though. What I mean by that is that the view may be valid that one should not be shooting ungulates if not also contributing to predator control, to some extent.
when it comes to that philosophy, I used to think I would only kill what I eat IF IT ISNT THREATENING ME ME ME....when predators numbers get too high in areas they shouldn't be we need to step in (kill some bad actors) or let nature take its course (the weak ones will be chased away to ???? starve or be killed by others of their kind)..... you can sort of think of it like killing off invasive species like zebra mussels or gold fish....If man has caused an imbalance by facilitating animals/plants/disease to get to areas they wouldn't naturally get to, we need to mitigate that impact.....for wolves, pushing roads in everywhere has allowed them to penetrate into areas where they should not be....grizz/cougars etc were SSS by anyone on the fringe and over time it went too far so we changed how we think about grizz and started to let them live/reproduce to the point where there are problem bears that are not being dealt with
Hunting is far more than just one adjective listed earlier. I think trying to put a single label on our pursuit of wild animals does a disservice to the act of hunting as a whole. Hunting for me is not categorized by one term, but many. Food, adventure, exploring the unknown, the challenge physically and mentally, learning wild animals in their natural state. I don't know how many times i have experienced something out hunting than I would not have experienced.
The term "Trophy Hunting" is a wrongly placed label used by those who don't understand hunting. Is the meat no less a trophy? Or does the act of simply taking the antler, horn or fur make along with all the useable parts make it Trophy Hunting"? If one was to leave the parts that make it a "Trophy", is that not as wasteful as leaving edible parts of an animal thats life was just taken?
Hunting as conservation is another disputed topic. For the act of hunting is not really conservation, but the management and oversight of hunting is. 120 years ago a group of hunters got together said that if our wild places and wild animals are not managed and conserved than there will be no wild places and wild animals. If the endangered Species act was around in 1910 all big game in North America would be on it. Bison, Elk, Moose, Pronghorn, Whitetail deer, Mule deer, Sheep, Black Bear, Grizzly Bear, Wolf and Turkey. All those animals would not be here if not for hunters.