tagged w/ Bear Hunting
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Legal action aimed at bear hunt
Sunday, June 5, 2011
BY DONNA ROLANDO
STAFF WRITER
Animal rights advocates won’t be wasting any time in seeking a legal end to New Jersey’s plans for another black bear hunt.
In fact, Doris Lin, vice president of legal affairs for the BEAR Group, said that a lawsuit previously filed against the State of New Jersey, challenging its black bear management plan is still "moving forward" and could have the power to stop this year’s hunt.
"Our motion to try to stop the 2010 bear hunt was denied, but that was just one motion," said Lin. "Our lawsuit on the merits is still alive."
This lawsuit was filed last November on behalf of the BEAR Group and the Animal Protection League of NJ.
Although it has yet to be assigned to a judge, Lin said she expects that the case will be heard in the Appellate Division in Trenton in time to make a difference for the planned December hunt.
Lin explained that the lawsuit challenges the validity of the 2010 Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy, which the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) says established a black bear hunt as a management tool for a growing bruin population.
The 2010 policy is procedurally flawed, Lin said, because public comments on the proposed hunt were not fully considered and some were omitted from the published summary in alleged violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Further, it is substantively flawed, she said, "because it is based on faulty science, and in some cases, completely fabricated scientific information."
According to the plan, which is available on the DEP website, the Fish and Game Council "desires to reduce high-risk bear incidences that are a threat to public safety and property damage," and reiterates that the state’s bear population – at an estimated 3,400 – is large enough to support a regulated recreational hunting season.
DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese said previously it will take at least a few years of an established hunt to bring bear population numbers down to a tolerable level considering that annually new cubs are adding to these numbers.
But Lin maintains that the Division of Fish and Wildlife’s bear complaints are "inflated and there was no actual increase in bear complaints, which is what the hunt is based on."
Lin’s comments follow the Division of Fish and Wildlife’s recommendation – brought to light last month – that the first full week of December be dedicated to the 2011 bear hunt.
Although the Fish and Game Council is not likely to act on this recommendation until July, state DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese did not expect the same process that led to the 2010 bear hunt – since a hunt is already "one of the facets of the black bear management policy approved by the Fish and Game Council,"
With that hunt already established, Ragonese said the Fish and Game Council is left to determine the particulars of this hunt as part of its annual game code, which sets the regulations for all the state’s game.
For this calendar year, the Division of Fish and Wildlife has recommended that the hunt be held Dec. 5-10 for six days to coincide with the deer shotgun season.
In the meantime, animal advocates are gearing up to stop the hunt, and Suburban Trends is receiving a flurry of letters from those opposed to a bear cull.Legal action aimed at bear hunt
Sunday, June 5, 2011
BY DONNA ROLANDO
STAFF WRITER... more
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Robin Roberts (GMA) asked Sarah Palin about the controversy surrounding her hunting on her reality show, and criticism towards it.
Sarah Palin responded as expected:
"[I] would never shoot an animal for its fur or for fashion."
In her living room, in the background -- and clearly on camera -- lies a bear's skin, complete with his head.Robin Roberts (GMA) asked Sarah Palin about the controversy surrounding her hunting on... more
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The population has roughly quadrupled over the last two decades, and some Fish and Game officials say it would remain robust with expanded hunting regions and caps.
By Carla Hall, Los Angeles Times
April 19, 2010 | 6:17 p.m.
As outdoor activities in California go, bear hunting is not particularly popular. Officials estimate that, at most, 1% of the state's population hunts black bears. Many of the other 99% are appalled that anyone does.
"I think most people think of it as an anachronism," said state Fish and Game Commissioner Michael Sutton, who speculates that the state's voters may soon ban the practice.
Bear hunting has come a long way since the 1920s, when ranchers and farmers wiped out the grizzly, leaving its sole California presence on the state flag. Gone are the days when you could kill a bear anytime, anywhere, any way.
So Sutton and his fellow commissioners — hunters all — weren't surprised when proposals to expand black bear hunting drew protest.
Nearly 70 environmental, community and animal welfare organizations have lined up against the proposals, most notably the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and various chapters of the Sierra Club. In San Luis Obispo County, the board of supervisors passed a resolution last month opposing expansion of hunting into their area.
"We find the totality of the proposal to be unsporting, unfair, inhumane and reckless," said Jennifer Fearing, the Humane Society's Sacramento lobbyist.
But officials at the state Department of Fish and Game say they proposed the changes because California's black bear population is flourishing and spreading.
On Wednesday the commissioners will vote on whether to allow bear hunting in San Luis Obispo County and to increase the hunting area in Lassen and Modoc counties. They'll also decide whether to eliminate a cap on bear kills per season and allow bear hunters to put collars with GPS tracking devices on their hounds.
Black bears long have thrived from Northern California down to Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, according to Doug Updike, the department's game program manager and a wildlife ecologist. In the last few decades, he said, Fish and Game biologists have seen more bears in San Luis Obispo, Modoc and Lassen Counties. The number of bears statewide, meanwhile, has "increased from under 10,000 in the early '80s to nearly 40,000 now," he said.
"They get hit by cars, we get reports by property owners that they broke into their houses, we get pictures, we know what bear prints look like," he said.
Over the last half-century, California has regulated bear hunting. Trapping has been outlawed and a hunting season set — roughly October to the last Sunday in December, depending on the region. Cubs under 50 pounds and mother bears with their cubs may not be killed. Hunters must obtain identification tags and are allowed one bear per season.
Successful or not, hunters must return their tags to Fish and Game, stating whether or not they bagged a bear. In addition, successful hunters are expected to present their bear skulls to department officials, who extract a tooth from each skull for age monitoring. (Hunters then get the skulls back.) It also is illegal to sell bear parts in California. The state considers possession of as few as two bear gall bladders — lucrative products in Asian markets — evidence of illegal activity.
Still, those who object to the proposed hunting changes say the killing remains too easy.
One proposal they find particularly egregious would allow hunters to equip their dogs with GPS tracking collars that have so-called tip switches, which go off when a dog cocks its head, presumably to look up a tree where it has hounded a bear.
"Given that we are not anti-hunting as much as we are anti-trophy-hunting practices, we zeroed in on these changes," said Fearing of the Humane Society. "Hound hunting is totally unfair and often inhumane — for the bears and the dogs," she said.
Opponents portray hunters as unsportsmanlike folks, watching their GPS devices to see when dogs have treed a bear so they can easily amble over and shoot it. Proponents of the sport, on the other hand, portray hunters with hounds as athletic and focused, sprinting after their dogs, enjoying the chase as much as their canines do. They say that the GPS devices are mostly for tracking lost and injured dogs and that hunters already use radio telemetry to track their dogs.
You don't need a GPS device to tell you when your hounds have found a bear, said Updike, a hunter whose wife has killed a bear. "They can tell by the baying of the hounds how the hounds are doing." He also objected to the idea that California hunters are after trophies, saying that most eat the meat of the bears they kill.
The state relies on a variety of methods to track the bear population. In addition to anecdotal evidence and field work by biologists, hunters' tags tell officials when and where bears were killed.
Critics of changing the hunting rules say monitoring killed bears is not enough to get a sense of their real population. They say the state's methods also don't take into account regional pressures on bear habitats.
The state also monitors the median age of bears killed and the percentage that are female, Updike said, to alert them of when to pull back on hunting. Hunters prefer larger bears, which are usually male. So if a season's total kill is more than 40% female, for instance, "that's a red flag because it means the number of males is getting scarce, which means the hunting pressure is starting to affect the population."
Because of such tracking, he said, state officials are confident that the population is robust enough to withstand well over the 1,700-bear kill figure that now prompts the state to send out an alert closing down the season.
"We looked at a mathematical model for the hunting season which would take 3,100 bears — which we've never ever done," said Updike. "That still is an insignificant number relative to the population. The population would still be robust."
And not having to send out an alert would save thousands of dollars, he said. Some commissioners said they are still not sure how they will vote Wednesday. Commissioner Daniel Richards, who hunts mammals, said he is inclined to widen the hunt. Commissioner Richard Rogers — a duck hunter — said he has no problems with bear hunting but was leaning against the changes.
Sutton, who hunts birds but not mammals, said he too is leaning toward voting no. He's not against bear hunting. But his experience as a former federal game warden has made him sensitive to the dangers of hunting, such as "the potential for increased poaching and illegal commercialization."
"Our wardens are already strapped," he said. "All these things tend to argue against expansion of bear hunting."
Photo Caption: A black bear in the foothills above Monrovia. (Rudy Libra)The population has roughly quadrupled over the last two decades, and some Fish and... more
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by Stephanie Ernst
Published December 15, 2009 @ 06:55AM PT Took, harvested, bagged, downed, secured, dispatched. A whole lot of euphemisms for one very basic concept: brutal killing.
In this horrifying blog post for "sportsmen" on a Pennsylvania news site, about the joyful "successes" of area bear hunters, the above euphemisms for killing were used 20 times. And animal advocates, I'll warn you now: you may not want to put yourself through reading the story and seeing the bloody photos. The animals' final, frightened, fleeing moments are recounted gleefully, with not a single thought given to what their experience of this "sport" was like.
The callousness and disregard, from both the blogger and the hunters, are disturbing. Take this, for example, which happened minutes after a human dad gunned down a two-year-old female bear, with the help of a "driving gang of 20-25 hunters":
When Dave discovered that other hunters in the gang had shot at and maybe hit another bear in the same area but were not concerned with confirming a hit, kill or miss, he went in search of any evidence he could find.
He soon found a blood trail and followed it into a thick stand of laurel, where he spotted an injured bear struggling to rise among a tangle of fallen trees. Only after dispatching the animal did the senior Mrksic discover that it was a smaller bear than his sons.
No sympathy for the struggling, suffering, terrified young animal. Just excitement that someone else had made this an easy kill for them. Just anticipation of getting matching father-and-son "shoulder mounts made from their bears" for a wall display at home. Such an enormous disconnect here, such a lack of connection with and understanding of what it is they're doing, of how that bear is feeling.
Someone want to tell me yet again about how hunters are "respectful" of the animals they kill? How we should respect and work with them, rather than challenge their mindset and perspectives, when it comes to conservation and protection of free-living animals?
Screw that. Hunt sabs and challenges to -- and frankly, outright violations of -- hunter harassment laws look better and better sometimes, don't they?
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Photo by Flickr user brownpauby Stephanie Ernst
Published December 15, 2009 @ 06:55AM PT Took, harvested,... more
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1) Palin offered a bounty of $150 for each left front leg of freshly killed wolves
2) Palin promotes aerial hunting of wolves even though Alaskans voted twice to ban it (VIDEO)
3) Palin used $400,000 of state money to fund a propaganda campaign in support of aerial hunting
4) Palin believes man-made global warming is a farce
5) Palin strongly supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
6) Palin is a champion for big oil and her slogan has become "Drill, baby, drill!"
7) Palin is suing the federal government to prevent listing the polar bear as an endangered species
8) Palin sues the federal government over listing Cook Inlet beluga whale as an endangered species1) Palin offered a bounty of $150 for each left front leg of freshly killed wolves... more
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