Bear shot by Homeowner Across Road- Thoughts on Justification

[DougW]

A couple night ago a bear was shot across the road, the only house I can see. We have not seen the bear at all so for us it was not a problem bear. edit added House across had recently got 3 baby goats for the kids. Don't believe that were in a secure enclosure.

here's the email that went out from the shooter

Dear friends and neighbours and members of the XXX residents association.

Some of you may have heard a lot of noise, bangs, and shooting last night. I apologize if this caused you any concern.

DIL had an unfortunate confrontation with a bear which killed one of her goats.

I was there at the time and used a shotgun with bear bangers to try and move the bear out of the area but with little success. He was guarding a dead goat very close to the house and was aggressive in defending his kill.

To cut a long story short the incident ultimately ended in a dangerous confrontation, the bear charged twice and was shot.

The incident was immediately reported to the Conservation Service with whom I have had a meeting this morning. They are satisfied that my actions were reasonable, appropriate and lawful but it has become clear in the aftermath that many of us have had some sort of experience with this bear in the last few weeks.

We had a previous visit from this bear about 10 days ago. There was no damage or loss of life and we chased him off. I believe other neighbours lost chickens and others had great difficulty removing this bear from their porches and decks.

Each of us was just looking at one piece of the jigsaw and for each of us individually our experience did not rise to the threshold where we would get the conservation service involved.

With hindsight, which is always 20/20, we had a problem bear in our midst for quite some time and had we been able to see the totality of the picture we should perhaps have involved the Conservation service earlier.

We already warn each other if we see a bear near the houses but perhaps we need to elevate this to the next level and report to all our friends and neighbours any adverse experiences with bears so that we all have a clearer picture of what’s happening and can involve the Conservation service earlier.

I doubt that in this case it would have saved the life of the bear, he was in good shape but was clearly habituated to people and was actively predating livestock and poultry very close to residences. It may perhaps have saved the life of the goat and potentially that of a young child or pets.

Thank you for listening. If anyone has any ideas about how to create an alert system I would like to hear your thoughts. In the absence of anything better a combination of email and messages may be our only options

Regards and best wishes to all.

He is certainly trying to justify shooting and throwing shade at rest of neighbourhood to spread out the blame.

[ötzi]

Killing livestock and charging people, if true, seems adequate justification for a lead-enhanced diet to me.

[Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo]

Killing livestock and charging people, if true, seems adequate justification for a lead-enhanced diet to me.

Indeed. I don't know how they do it in Canada but here in CO if you waited and called Parks & Wildlife it just would have been them shooting that bear, instead of your neighbors.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Sucks, but sounds legit.

People gotta haze bears whenever they see them, and take all attractants away. 12 ga bean bags work great, so do blunt arrows.
Bears have got to learn people are bad, it's the best for them in the long run.

[DJSapp]

[TBS]

If black bears find a food source based on human habitat, ultimately the animal is fucked. They will keep coming back and getting more aggressive.

That said, bears around here aren’t that big, and don’t bother livestock. Diet is roots, berries, bugs and reptiles.

[lifelinksplit]

Buddy living in big sky had the FWP guy "suggest" frozen paintballs as a deterrent to black bear that kept breaking into vehicles.

[PNWbrit]

All seems fairly reasonable to me. Is there some other official body he should have reported to other than the 'Conservation Service"?

Bear was trying to get into my garbage can again earlier this week.

[char_]

A couple night ago a bear was shot across the road, the only house I can see. We have not seen the bear at all so for us it was not a problem bear. edit added House across had recently got 3 baby goats for the kids. Don't believe that were in a secure enclosure.

here's the email that went out from the shooter

Dear friends and neighbours and members of the XXX residents association.

Some of you may have heard a lot of noise, bangs, and shooting last night. I apologize if this caused you any concern.

DIL had an unfortunate confrontation with a bear which killed one of her goats.

I was there at the time and used a shotgun with bear bangers to try and move the bear out of the area but with little success. He was guarding a dead goat very close to the house and was aggressive in defending his kill.

To cut a long story short the incident ultimately ended in a dangerous confrontation, the bear charged twice and was shot.

The incident was immediately reported to the Conservation Service with whom I have had a meeting this morning. They are satisfied that my actions were reasonable, appropriate and lawful but it has become clear in the aftermath that many of us have had some sort of experience with this bear in the last few weeks.

We had a previous visit from this bear about 10 days ago. There was no damage or loss of life and we chased him off. I believe other neighbours lost chickens and others had great difficulty removing this bear from their porches and decks.

Each of us was just looking at one piece of the jigsaw and for each of us individually our experience did not rise to the threshold where we would get the conservation service involved.

With hindsight, which is always 20/20, we had a problem bear in our midst for quite some time and had we been able to see the totality of the picture we should perhaps have involved the Conservation service earlier.

We already warn each other if we see a bear near the houses but perhaps we need to elevate this to the next level and report to all our friends and neighbours any adverse experiences with bears so that we all have a clearer picture of what’s happening and can involve the Conservation service earlier.

I doubt that in this case it would have saved the life of the bear, he was in good shape but was clearly habituated to people and was actively predating livestock and poultry very close to residences. It may perhaps have saved the life of the goat and potentially that of a young child or pets.

Thank you for listening. If anyone has any ideas about how to create an alert system I would like to hear your thoughts. In the absence of anything better a combination of email and messages may be our only options

Regards and best wishes to all.

He is certainly trying to justify shooting and throwing shade at rest of neighbourhood to spread out the blame.

Your take is interesting. I read it as if he didn't want to shoot a bear again and would have liked to have known there were other issues in the neighborhood so the appropriate authorities could deal with it. Sounds like someone who wants to have more communication with his neighbors.

But maybe Paul Harvey can fill us in on the rest of the story.

[liv2ski]

IMO, in all encounters with wild life, unless you can not escape and your life is in immediate jeopardy of ending, the outcome should involve a very painful fine based on your financial resources if you kill a wild animal.
Let the bear have the non caged goat you dim wit. Next time just stake it out there so he doesn't have to chase it and get all grumpy.
There should be a fund to reimburse people for the dead animal based on the circumstances. Failing to secure your animals doesn't make you eligible for much but a kick in the nutz from a conservation officer.

[Timberridge]

...aaand we're off.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Buddy living in big sky had the FWP guy "suggest" frozen paintballs as a deterrent to black bear that kept breaking into vehicles.

Oh yeah, those work great.

Re bean bags, I know ranger rick uses them in the park. Despite the live and let live image the NPS likes to portray, the bears get hazed pretty heavily out of the lodge areas. And yogi gets the message quick, all ricky ranger has to do is rack the shotgun and those bears take off like a rocket. Bean bags must fucking hurt.

[wendigo]

I've shot bears with rubber bullets (they don't care), bangers (meh), and bean bags which get their attention in a hurry. You need to shoot them in the ass or you can kill them.
While training we shot bean bags through 3/4" plywood at 50'. So yeah, they must hurt.

[DougW]

I'll add some info . Our area is pretty wild though don't have a lot of bears coming through as it not great bear habitat for full time residence. Sometimes have a bear in woods for a month in spring and then in fall see some sign. Can see grizz tracks down by the river in fall. Have seen wolf and cougar on our property. If someone has lets say bees they are an idiot if they don't put up electric fence. Any livestock other than horses or cattle need a guardian dog as much for wolfs or cougars as for bears.

So my issue is the fact that they had baby goats and did not take adequate measures to protect them and to stop them from being an attractant. It is very possible that the CO would have put the bear down if had been called but usually need a bit more evidence that habituated. The fact that bear did not move off a fresh kill is somewhat common sense. Of course a bear is not going to move off. They were not in danger and took action to drive the bear off which resulted in the shooting. I don't know how close the bear was to the house but it could have been very close.

On the side issue of the chickens. We found out later that an other neighbour lost 22 chickens. Now that may be why the bear was becoming more aggressive around houses. This neighbour is pretty bad for putting up shittie structures.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

IMO, in all encounters with wild life, unless you can not escape and your life is in immediate jeopardy of ending, the outcome should involve a very painful fine based on your financial resources if you kill a wild animal.
Let the bear have the non caged goat you dim wit. Next time just stake it out there so he doesn't have to chase it and get all grumpy.
There should be a fund to reimburse people for the dead animal based on the circumstances. Failing to secure your animals doesn't make you eligible for much but a kick in the nutz from a conservation officer.

Doesn't work that way with bears. Their evolutionary drive to food is incredibly immense and as soon as they associate an easier way to get the food they need to get fat, they'll do anything they can to get it. Look at Americans now days and you'll see why bears want human food. Goats, chickens and bee hives, even better. Hardly have to work for that.

I'm all for fining people if they don't eliminate attractants, but as soon as a bear associates people with easy, fatty food - it's over for the bear.

[Buster Highmen]

We've got bears and virtually all the neighbors keep their trash protected until 6:30 am Monday morning, the day of pickup.

Occasionally we still get some dumpster diving, but preventing them from being attracted is primary.

One of the neighbors has chickens and the bears used to go after the chicken feed, but they manage that better now.

All that said, I thought the note to neighbors was worthy.

I wasn't there, so whodafuck knows what really went down and I'm just so done with applied prejudice in the absence of data.

[PNWbrit]

bee hives

Did anyone see the new Gary Larson cartoons that just came out?



https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff

[liv2ski]

I wasn't there, so whodafuck knows what really went down and I'm just so done with applied prejudice in the absence of data.

While I would like to live my life based around that comment, people are so fucking stoopid and kill so many animals needlessly, I am over it.

[BmillsSkier]

...aaand we're off.

You want to mention the wolves and ranchers or should I?

[liv2ski]

You want to mention the wolves and ranchers or should I?

You fucker Bmills, now you have gone to far. But ya, it is a given. Fuck the ranchers. They will be reimbursed if they have anything left after paying the fine.

[Jax]

Habituated bears don't live long in most cases. 3 strikes and you're out in CO, and that's just for our measly black bears. A non-collared bear did get shot last week buy a guy at a campground outside of Ned, it never had a chance.

[Talisman]

Is a bean bag enough to haze this MT grizzly?

[dan_pdx]

I'm just a random Internet dentist who doesn't know shit about this stuff, but my takeaway from that letter would be that they took reasonable measures to not kill the bear. Granted they may have helped create the problem by not securing their kids, but it sounds like this particular bear had already learned that there was easy picking near houses.

[dan_pdx]

Is a bean bag enough to haze this MT grizzly?

Cool picture! Was that taken by a game camera, telephoto lens, or someone with impaired decision making skills?

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Is a bean bag enough to haze this MT grizzly?

Yes.