Plotting the Future for Grizzlies
How Will We Hunt Grizzlies?
Wildlife agencies in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are looking for feedback about future grizzly bear hunts, in case the bruins' population swells.By Amy Linn, 8-04-09
Grizzlies in Yellowstone. Flickr photo by Don DeBold.
For people who have an opinion about grizzly bear hunting, the time to speak up is now.
Three state agencies—Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP), the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game—are looking for comments on proposed guidelines for future bear hunting seasons. The hunts, according to the agencies, would only take place if grizzly bear populations are robust enough to withstand the “discretionary” mortality.
According to FWP, none of the states are considering a grizzly hunting season at this time. But if populations ever swell to the point where there are “surplus bears,” Montana, Idaho and Wyoming have drafted an agreement for developing quotas and other matters related to bear hunting. (The number of grizzlies in Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding ecosystem has increased from about 136 bears in 1975, when they were listed as a threatened species, to more than 500 bears today, the FWP says.)
The current proposal, as the FWP describes it, would:
--"Include area-wide caps on grizzly bear mortalities [and] intensive monitoring of Yellowstone bears, their food, and their habitats.”
--Establish maximum allowable mortality limits for adult males and females, as well as for dependent young, grizzly bears.
--Allow different states to have different objectives. “Specifically, the state of Wyoming’s objective is to limit further expansion of the population in size and distribution ... The states of Idaho and Montana have an objective of allowing the population to expand into biologically suitable and socially acceptable areas.”
To see the entire proposal, go to the FWP website and click on 2009 MOU. For more information, go to FWP.
Comments are due by August 12 at 5 p.m. Send them by mail to: Grizzy Bear MOU; Wildlife Division; Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; P.O. Box 200701; Helena, MT 59620-0701. Comments can also be sent by .
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Once these areas are preserved, linkage corridors need to be looked at and protected.
When that happens, and only then we should look at hunting a few grizzly bears.
I'm sorry but this hogwash of locking up the land for the wildlife is just that "hogwash". So please how about talking to those who actually have lived in that kind of country instead of taking the words of the bleeding hearts of Walt Disney and such. People who are willing to live with the nature of things instead of trying to change it into something that it is not, which so many new comers try to do. They turn their dogs and cats loose and expect their flowers not to be eaten. They bring their way of living in a populated place with them and expect it to be the same here. Then they complain when life isn't exactly what they want. Sorry it doesn't work that way.
Establish quotas, count off season losses against the quotas, but do everything possible to ensure that seasons do come off, and that sportsmen and women can in fact defend themselves appropriately while afield. No more gutpile surprises.
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