Handled OK or Animal Harassment

[BuckEye]

Watching wildTV a week back and saw a Bowhunter TV episode where they were truck road hunting black bears in northern BC. The forest service road was pretty much single lane with bush on each side. A cow moose and very fresh calf were encountered on the road. The filming from the truck proceeds as they continue to approach the pair. The cow stands over her calf, holding her ground and becomes very agitated at about the 10-20 yard distance. She looks to be showing obvious signs. (Hair standing straight on back/neck etc) Instead of stopping or better backing off until the pair move off into the bush, the truck continues slowly to the point the cow charges the front of the vehicle to within inches. Lots of camera's including a cell phone being held out the window recording it all. The narrative before and during and after just ads to my thoughts that they really should have been more patient in letting these moose get off the road. There appears to be additional video portions cut, but the end scene is the truck doing about a 10 ft pass of cow and calf on the side of the road where the cow proceeds to chase the truck for a ways in it's dust.
They have the encounter highlighted on the Bowhunter TV website. Would you have handled the situation in the same manner? I don't think I would have.
Go to bowhunter dot com /tv scroll down to second video line and view the "moose encounter while hunting black bear video"
Am I off base here ?

[Busterpayton54]

I wonder how Bears, Cougars, and wolves would have handled it.
I would say slowly approaching an animal that has escape routes is hardly harassment, while the opposite would be said about chasing an animal around a field or frozen lake via skidoo, or a swimming moose with a boat.

And where do we draw the line.. Am I supposed to stop and wait out a mouse filling his face on some spilled grain in the middle of a dirt road till he's had his fill? What if it's a squirrel with nuts? How bout a raccoon eating a mouse? A coyote eating a coon? A bear eating a coyote? A deer eating some plumbs? A moose eating some grass?

Why do we call it harassment when it's one type of animal yet find it acceptable to invade the space of other animals? We slow down for a rabbit, duck, bear, moose, deer, elk, but if it's a crow, coyote, rat, mouse or a squirrel we expect them to clear the way?


I won't chase or approach a cornered animal, but I will stop and watch an animal if/when I feel like it, I'll respectfully approach it slowly to entice it to move off. My world isn't going to stop because some stubborn animal wants to have an all day long stare down.

[Buckmeister]

Hunting shows these days may have a lot of influence from "reality" tv shows that like to hype things up with drama and such. To encounter a cow with fresh calf IS a sight to behold, and I imagine the people making the tv show wanted to capitalize on the situation and let their brains and logic take a sideline. Yes, I would (and have) approach the situation differently. I prefer to stay back, giving the animals room to move and not incite fear or whatever. Plus, I just like to see animals in the wild and observe how the behave. But, as mentioned by the poster above me, I'm not going to wait all day either and will approach with caution if they don't move on.

[40incher]

Absolutely it is harassment! To distract a cow moose with a young calf, and to record it, speaks volumes about the idiots involved.

I no longer watch shows that disrespect the animals and glamorize the kill.

[adriaticum]

Harassment is a bit of a strong word. Stupidity might be more appropriate.

[BuckEye]

Chose the word harassment as it has some broad designators under the BC Wildlife Act. We can all pick out extreme cases of harassment such as the guy riding the swimming moose or the guy chasing the moose in a UTV while his girl filmed. Causing an animal undue stress falls into the definition of harassment under the BC Wildlife Act. The video shows the moose is clearly in stress and instead of backing off, the guide outfitter driving pushes closer causing more stress. Where does the line get crossed between shear stupidity vs illegal when it is not an extreme case like the ones that make the news hour.

[ACB]

This guide should lose his guiding privileges or at very least have a hefty fine levied because he should know better. But a guy like Kurt Wells who preaches bow hunting ethics should all so under stand wildlife ethics. The whole reason to have gotten that close to that cow and calf was to get down the road quicker so Kurt Wells could stick a bear. Really? All that they would of had to have done was back off 50-100 yards and let the cow lead her calf off the road.

[Wentrot]

Saw it as well- dumb move

[Glenny]

Givem their space I say. Don't wanna mess with a pissed off cow. When the ears go back...Look out!

[ve7iuq]

It is harassment, for sure.

[HarryToolips]

Absolutely it is harassment! To distract a cow moose with a young calf, and to record it, speaks volumes about the idiots involved.

I no longer watch shows that disrespect the animals and glamorize the kill.
I agree, they could be charged under the wildlife act, just like that guy who shot the moose while encountering it on his snowmobile I would think??

[squamishhunter]

There's so many animals up here if we stopped for them all we'd never get anywhere.

That said, I don't see a need to record a moose being a moose.

[zazman]

It's harassment in my opinion. Maybe if there wasn't a calf and the cow wasn't wanting to get off the road, I agree that you don't need to wait forever until it gives you the right of way. But obviously the calf is the reason the cow is upset and won't leave. Have some respect. If you run into this situation all the time and think you would never get anywhere I really question your thoughts here. Really? How many times has an animal with a calf/fawn/cub been encountered so often that wouldn't get off the road that you actually thought -this is crazy...I just waited for last few animals with young so screw this I have to be somewhere so I will push my way through.