Sunday, January 04, 2009

Bear Hunting

No, not the kind you'd find wearing chaps and a leather harness at the Eagle that can be lured with a "woof." The four legged, Yogi variety.

The LTR and I witnessed bear hunting during our trip to the mountains, and we were appalled.

Keep in mind, we both come from hunting traditions in our families and are not opposed to hunting. But this type of bear hunting is disgusting.

It's done with dogs. And radios. And hunters sitting in trucks until the game is cornered.

Each hunter sets bait ("breads, cereals, jams, and other sweets" according to one bear hunting Web site).

Then they loose the dogs (up to six per hunter, according to one online source, although I did not witness that many at once and the size of the team may vary state to state).

The dogs root out the bears, then chase it up a tree. The hunter then shoots the bear with a high powered rifle.

And what are the hunters doing while the dogs are ganging up on the bear? Again, according to a bear hunting Web site, the hunters are out in the woods with the dogs...but I didn't see a single bear hunter in the woods...but I did see them sitting in their pickup trucks at the trailheads, monitoring their dogs through the radio collars they have on their necks.

Look, if my family's subsistence depended on my hunting skills, damn straight I'd use dogs and radio technology to bring the food home.

But they call this a "sport."

But in my view, there's no sport in this.

The video below shows dogs treeing a bear. There is no kill shot. It's possible the hunters in this video let the bear, which appears to be a cub, go. But it gives you an idea of the "sport."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I likewise come from a family and tradition of hunting. In our family, hunting was very active out in the woods and a very rigorous activity that one engaged in to attain food.

I am appalled at the idea of "hunting for sport" and the fact that the hunter is sitting on his rear instead of out there working for the food. Even more appalling are the massive numbers of hunters that leave the "kill" in the woods and do not use the animal for food after the life is spent.

My family would have skinned my back side if I wasted a life without utilizing the resources that life could have provided... maybe we need more mentors for children on how to live life with respect for life.

-C

Anonymous said...

Maybe we need more people to see that in nature, every day something dies so something else can live. How do you know that hunters don,t use the resources they take? A little common sense and a lot less political correctness would go a long way in this country.

Scott said...

Anon: My problem is not with hunting (Did you actually read my post?). My problem is with unsportsmanlike hunting, which this is. If a family needed to rely on this type of survival, okay, but you can't tell me the morbidly obese hunters I saw were living off the land.