Bear Hunting- Pro or Anti?

[billyk]

Since my opinion doesn’t count, personally I would never shoot a bear unless it were coming at me and I had a gun handy.

If I were subsistence living in AK, though, I’d harvest protein any way I legally could.

[Tele 'til You're Smelly]

But you had damn well better be ready . . . when you skin it and realize how much it looks like a human with the skin off

Yeah I came across a guy skinning one while elk hunting once and it seemed like some Hannibal Lecter shit going on.

[Jong Lafitte]

Chet Ripley to the courtesy phone please.

[cat in january]

Yeah I came across a guy skinning one while elk hunting once and it seemed like some Hannibal Lecter shit going on.

No time to waste with bear meat, it spoils quickly. Not a fan of killing them, but it provides jobs in Northern Maine where they are hard to come by.

[Bunion 2020]

There are jobs in Northern Maine skinning bears? or killing them?

Other than the thrill of the hunt, what do these bear related industries produce?

[iceman]

Tourism dollars and associated businesses from hunters mainly.

[cat in january]

Right, guide businesses, lodging, etc. Lot of folks like to bag a trophy bear. Guides have allotted zones which they bait and the odds of killing are greatly increased. Guide fees are substantial. Never heard it, but told their scream when dying is very human like.

[liv2ski]

Never heard it, but told their scream when dying is very human like.

Jeezuz Christ I fucking hate people that do this kind of shit. Go to the grocery store and buy a fucking steak if you're hungry. Need a trophy? Shot your stoopid cousin.
Triggered!

[BCMtnHound]

Spring bear for meat, fall bear for rug and fat. Rendered bear fat was a mainstay in the old days for getting through the winter. Smoked hams from a spring bear are delicious. I haven’t hunted bear for meat in many years, I prefer a young whitetail or elk if I am going through all that work. Garbage bears are unfortunately not the best for the table for obvious reasons, which is a shame as that is by far the greatest cull for bear in this area. And ya, skinning and gutting bear takes a strong constitution for a number of reasons.

[Deepsouthmouthia]

I know a guy who hunts and eats black bears, he says it tastes like pork.

[ghosthop]

. Never heard it, but told their scream when dying is very human like.

Jeezuz Christ I fucking hate people that do this kind of shit. Go to the grocery store and buy a fucking steak if you're hungry. Need a trophy? Shot your stoopid cousin.
Triggered!

I've never shot a bear but a pig screams like a motherfucker when you kill it. It would be best if everyone had to go through the process of killing an animal so they understand what it takes to get that steak to the store.

[Conundrum]

Go to the grocery store and buy a fucking steak if you're hungry.

I generally like your posts but this statements rubs me. You realize that if a steak is at a store, someone, or some machine ran by someone killed that animal? I agree with the poster below-if you eat meat, you should participate in the killing and processing of it at least once. Too easy to swipe your card and eat a delicious ribeye while bitching about hunters. If you take just the head/antlers and don't eat the meat or make sure the meat is eaten, fuck you.

As for bears, my opinion is if scientists say the population needs to be controlled, so be it. They're the scientists. Do I think baiting is lame...maybe a little. But the end result is a dead bear whether you spot and stalk or bait. I'm not against bear hunting. I'm impartial to bear meat. I have and will eat it again but if I have a choice, I'd choose most ungulates over bear.

[Banh Mi]

I’m with you Liv2

Killing farmed animals is different in my opinion. And we should stick to that. Its not the killing that gets me, its fucking with nature.

We have already ruined this planet enough, you think we could leave the wild ones alone.. nope, some of you feel the need to kill this planet even more

Carnivore hunting is fucken sickening though, no excuse.

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[Conundrum]

Yeah, the farm animals have an awesome life being injected with all sorts of stuff, trucked around shitting and pissing all over each other, sleeping in their shit and piss, eating food formulated to fatten them, crammed in cages and pens, being zapped with hot shots, branded, getting their nuts cut off, dehorned, shaved, etc all controlled by humans.

I know this won't go over so well with but wildlife management actually keeps numbers of animals healthy and in balance. Many wild animals were brought back to areas they were essentially gone from by hunter funding. The outdoor industry (minus hunting, fishing and firearms) fights tooth and nail to avoid a "trailhead" tax to protect habitat and wildlife while hunting, fishing and firearms sales all kick in money towards conservation. The history of Pittman Robertson is interesting reading.

I guess we can only put value on animal life if the animal looks cool or lives in a cool place.

[Banh Mi]

Overpopulated my fucken ass. More like encroaching on the humans way of life and we just define it however we want.

I dont care too much if you are actually eating your kill. But any sort of trophy hunting is whack yo

One day, I hope to invent a tool/mechanism that helps livestock farmers deter carnivores better without killing

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[Conundrum]

Not sure where you got the word overpopulated from. If that's what you want to argue, you'll have to find someone else to banter with...your fucken ass will too.

Completely agree with you on human interference on animal populations. Pandoras box is open. Now some people want to conserve what's left. Part of that is human intervention in one form or another. I'd be happy to talk about that.

[tango uniform]

"Anti"; always thought they were cool. Although, I almost hit one in the head with a shovel out of desperation because it was heading for my frozen, crying kids. Luckily my neighbor was watching, and drove over with his High beams on and horn blowing. I'm glad I did not have a chance to grab my 12 gauge; I'd feel horrible.

It was an adolescent; maybe 2.5 years old, that had been eating at campgrounds and shit. That was his last summer, because " a fed [emoji199] is a dead [emoji199]"! It always ends like that.

[Banh Mi]

Not you sorry. But what else could you mean by balance? If you mean reintroducing more animals and giving them more space, then I like the sound of that. Balance a “high population” is bullshit in my opinion. I understand where the science is coming from, but I personally think the science will have completely different defintions 50 years from now when we realize how much we fucked this earth.




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[BCMtnHound]

We’ve been fucking with ecosystems since we settled in one spot and started agriculture. Once we decided we could move our domesticated species out of their home ecosystem to another area we decided to populate, the new ecosystem has had to adapt. Some species always get left behind (extirpated). This is not new, and has been catastrophic in some places. As long as our population expands, requiring more area to build homes or turn into agriculture, the damage will continue. Trying to separate ourselves from our local environment, and the challenges that that entails to attempt to do as little harm, the further down the path we kick that ecosystem can. In this area, hunting so far is far less harmful on the environment than agriculture. This is probably not true in many places further south, or towards the populated coast. There is no single answer, or magic bullet, short of our own extinction.

[Conundrum]

Balance. We humans hunted, culled, and chased wolves, bears (grizzlies mainly), and buffalo out of their historical ranges. A human intervention. We start with agriculture and follow with recreation and take over habitat. Human intervention. We build giant mountain second homes in prime habitat. Human intervention. We bring species back to places which impacts other species. Human intervention. Ranchers get pissed. Some hunters (the kind I don't respect much) get angry. Reintroduction is always going to piss someone off. I'm generally for reintroduction and pissing people off. But it's more human intervention. People build where they shouldn't and then have mountain lion problems. Can't hunt them because that pisses someone off. Can't let them eat toy poodles in rich neighborhoods so the gov pays professional hit men with your tax dollars. Human intervention. We create preserves such as Yellowstone where animals live in a "perfect" ecosystem with humans driving through and tourists taking selfies with the animals. Someone gets maimed. Relocate or cull the animal. Human intervention. Harsh winter and deer and elk populations go down, wolves move and get into livestock. Now we have deadstock. More intervention.

There's no going back as we're always going to be involved. If there's no hunters, populations (in the right weather years) get big and diseases hits herds. I'd rather see people do what people do and eat those animals than watch them die. We want to help mountain goats thrive but we don't have funding. There's a governor auction tag sold at auction and someone throws $400,000 into the conservation fund to shoot one. I'm not saying the motive of hunters is always great but the funding to pay for wildlife management is nice. Most states' fish and game conservation officers doing all the work trying to keep a balance between wildlife and humans is funded by hunters and anglers like it or not.

I don't think wildlife is at a perfect balance but nature will never be able to do what nature used to do to keep things in balance until humans are gone. So, as the god players we are, we will try to keep a balance. Sadly, those who want to make money usually win and things go out of balance more than they are kept in balance.

Edit-BCMtnHound types faster than me. And more efficiently.

[Banh Mi]

Ya but carnivore hunting? I dont think there is a need for that. Carnivore numbers are way too low for that balance youre talking about.

If I was a trophy hunter, my form would be to bait, trap, and relocate further into the wild. I dont feel the need to kill something.


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[iceman]

That's our meat they're eating, dammit.

[Conundrum]

Like I said, I'm impartial to carnivore hunting but if the scientists say there are enough of them to hunt, I'm going to believe the scientists. There's political balances and compromises at play too. I'd recommend reading Wolfer by Carter Niemeyer. Really interesting account of predator management and the reintroduction of wolves by the guy who did the reintroduction.

[Banh Mi]

If it makes you happy, so be it

I get way more emotional about this subject than other subjects for some reason. Normally I think more empirically. I really dont know as much as I’d like, because the more I dig into it the more emotional I get


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[gavinski91]

I'm not a fan of trophy hunting, but if you're hunting for meat then I don't have a problem with hunting bear. In NWWa I know most hunters don't manage to fill their tag in high buck, and black bear has a bigger season which means more likelihood to put something in the freezer. Makes good sausage, or ground up for meatballs or in other dishes.

I think a good number of the folks who are opposed to it have no idea what a bear hunt actually looks like. Went up with a buddy a couple weeks ago for a day: we hiked up to his secret spot, sat on a ridge and froze our asses off for 4 hours, saw a bear a mile away, and ran around the basin to where it was, only to never see it again. I agree that baiting is bullshit, but he would say the same thing.

And the reason this guy is up there is because his freezer is empty (although WA's new law about roadkill has been a boon for him, I've lost track of how many roadkill deer he's harvested since that law came into effect).