Why Is Black Bear Hunting Legal

NDOW spokesman Chris Healy said 25 black bears were legally hunted and killed in Nevada during the 2011 and 2012 bear hunting season, which typically begins in August or September and lasts until the end of the year. “Recent scientific studies have shown the fundamental importance of wolves and bears in stabilizing ecosystems,” Ripple said. “A significant reduction in the number of large carnivores can trigger a chain of events that lead to ecosystem degradation.” (Read how the return of wolves to Yellowstone helped strengthen moose herds.) Then there is the experience of it all. Bear hunting is nothing short of an adventure. From observing how bears interact with the landscape to the dangerous land they attract me to, it never disappoints, at least in my eyes. Seeing deer and moose is fun, but bears? You never know what a bear is going to do. You can ride like a dog, climb a tree or go swimming. The places where they stand just to eat are also fascinating. I once saw a bear slide along a cliff on its stomach to reach a bush that was underneath.

The first bear I unpacked found friends and I climbed a cliff to get out. We frogs jumped (or bears jumped) from this canyon little by little. It`s something I`ll never forget and probably the catalyst for my love of bear hunting today. The grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) is a subspecies of North America. Grizzly bears are brown in colour, although not all brown bears that inhabit the interior of Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and the Northwest Territories are grizzly bears. Inland grizzly bears are generally much smaller than their coastal relatives. Grizzly bear season begins in the spring or fall, depending on local regulations and jurisdictions. In most of the 48 lower states, grizzly bears are considered endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Grizzly bears are legally hunted in British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Alaska. [2] 2.

Bears are abundant. Biologists believe there are more black bears today than there were before European settlement. Conservative estimates put the continental bear population at 800,000, compared to 500,000 before colonization. The things we post on social media also affect how people perceive bear hunting. This applies to all hunting, not just bears. If you take pictures of your cultures that I know there are more than a handful of you and plan to post online, think about it. Take the time to put your tongue back in your mouth and wipe the blood. If intestines appear, cover them with rocks or something like that. Basically, my goal is to honor the animal in the photo before making it visible to the world. By not doing this kind of thing, you are only fanning the fire for the anti-hunters.

These grotesque photos also don`t paint the best picture for people who aren`t familiar with this hunting life we live in. “What about the possibility of killing cougar kittens on federal reservations in the state of Utah?” Ripple says. “Or bobcats, coyotes, wolves and bears? There are all kinds of predators living on reserves in the 48 lower states. “Black bear populations are generally increasing in the U.S., but that`s not why people are seeing more. According to Western Wildlife Outreach, the construction of “subdivisions and roads” often displaces black bears from their natural habitat and therefore from their natural food. Carl Lackey, a biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife, estimated that a large majority of hunters eat bears after hunting. The National Park Service issued a rule in 2015 that challenged parts of that idea by explicitly banning things like killing mothers with babies, shooting floating caribou from boats, and using dogs to hunt bears. 1. Bears are iconic.

Their teeth, claws, strength and determination to survive symbolize our vast and rugged continent. Besides the mountain lion, the black bear has the widest natural geographic distribution of any big game in North America. Originally, black bears were found in more places than even white-tailed deer. In an earlier tweet, officials from the Washington Country Sheriff`s Office said it would not have been possible to move the bear. Hunters who carry firearms tend to prefer calibers large enough to inflict as much tissue and bone as possible, as grizzly bears and brown bears can usually withstand a series of direct shots to the limbs or trunk without stopping their attack. Bears have the ability to significantly reduce their heart rate during hibernation and gladly do so when injured as a defense mechanism against blood loss. Hunters who intentionally pursue the animal may use a larger size than deer, moose and caribou, which usually live in the same area. If they intend to keep the skin and ensure a quick and humane killing, they may prefer to use a large bullet that breaks the bear`s shoulder and continues through vital organs, ideally leaving an exit wound large enough to leave a trail of blood to find the sick animal. It is not uncommon for bears to be hunted from helicopters or in the air. The following year, the Trump administration began dismantling the 2015 rule. The National Park Service has released a new environmental study that concluded that while changes to hunting regulations may affect some animals, family groups or packs, they did not expect hunters to apply the controversial hunting methods far enough to have a significant impact on populations. While annual bear hunts are controversial, Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, believes that killing individual “pesky bears” is also ineffective.

However, he mentioned the large mixed-breed dogs sometimes used in West Virginia Alleghanies, which were trained not only to suffocate a bear, but also to grab the grizzly bear by the ankle while it was running. A pack of these dogs, trained to shoot directly on the head and hang on like a vice, even if they couldn`t kill the bear, held it in place long enough for the hunter to finish it off. [6] The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a large bear species found in the Northern Hemisphere. In 1702, bear skins were considered equivalent to those of American beavers. 16,512 furs were sent to the French port of Rochelle in 1743, while 8,340 were exported from the east coast of the United States in 1763. [10] In the 19th century, as settlers moved further west to find more land to raise livestock, bears were increasingly hunted as a threat to livestock. In 1818, a “war of annihilation” was declared in Ohio against wolves and bears. [13] Bear pelts were generally sold for between $2 and $20 in the 1860s.

[10] “States like Oregon too often needlessly kill bears that come to human-dominated areas in search of food to survive,” Block told INSIDER. “Often bears are mothers with dependent cubs. In the absence of good answers, states often mistakenly attempt to manage conflicts between bears and humans by increasing bear hunting rates and hitting bears twice as hard. Doris Lin, director of legal affairs for the New Jersey Animal Protection League, told NJ 101.5 in 2016 that bear populations are rarely a concern. In June, the National Park Service announced a new rule that allows hunting practices previously prohibited in Alaska National Preserves, including baiting bears with human food and killing bear mothers with cubs in their burrows. Many nature reserves border national parks, including Denali National Park pictured here. I think it`s a question of education. Not just people outside the hunting world. Believe it or not, there are hunters who don`t even know anything about bear hunting and what it entails. Many hunters do not know that bears are actually edible and not only edible, but delicious. This is an easy starting point, as there are already similarities between hunters.

I do this regularly with hunters who want to know more about how to try their luck with breaks.