"... to shoot hibernating bears and cubs in their dens, techniques allowed by the Trump administration but considered inhumane by conservationists. A rule proposed by the National Park Service on Friday would essentially restore restrictions that existed during the Obama administration but were gutted under President Donald J. Trump. Under the new policy, hunters on Alaska wildlife preserves would also no longer be able to kill adult wolves and pups in their dens, or use motorboats to shoot swimming caribou.... Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, issued a statement calling the new rule 'a victory for Alaska’s iconic wildlife species. Baiting bears just to blast them over a pile of doughnuts is just wrong'...."
I found this article confusing. Is there a policy to thin the number of bears, wolves, and caribou? Are we just talking about the method of killing? If so, the cruelty should be judged from the perspective of the animal, not the human being. This concentration on the meaning of doughnuts seems entirely human-centered. Is there some idea of giving the animal a fighting chance? That's the perspective of a human sports spectator. From the animal's perspective, there's drawn-out fear and pain. The government's position is sentimental and unscientific (as far as I can tell from this article).
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But what about indigenous/first peoples’ rights to preserve and perform their traditions? Have their leaders and shamans been consulted before we capitulate to these weeping sentimentalists?
Ashley Babbitt is unavailable for comment.
I have nothing against hunting, but give the poor animals a break and leave them alone in their 'houses.'
There is only enough food to support a limited number of wolves, bears, and caribou. It may well be that the animals who are not killed by humans are killed by starvation and disease.
You either allow baited hunting and culling the population or you don't. The obvious rebuttals from hunters include: (1) Fruit is expensive and out of season, but also high in sugar. Doughnuts do the same job and are cost effective, and (2) Culling a population means that some animals that would die in winter are killed "harvested for meat" rather than starve for lack of food. Only about half of wild animals will make it through any given winter, be they shot, trapped, or naturally starved and frozen.
Hunting groups reference the old Disney movie "Bambi," which had evil hunters who killed Bambi's mother. That was poaching, not hunting. The anti-gun, anti-hunting crowd seeks to start a slippery slope of new laws and bans by focusing on knee-jerk emotional framing of cold facts. Doughnuts. The right wing sometimes does similar things regarding abortion and immigration. Pick your ideals. Then play dirty politics or play clean.
So now all these species of animals can hold their head high when the 7mm magnum bullet pierces their chest cavity, knowing that they’ve been taken down by a worthy adversary.
Not just some rich slob who’s working on his 2nd 6 pack of the day.
Now, let’s imagine the human uterus as a cave, and an unborn baby as a bear cub.
restore restrictions that existed during the Obama administration
That is to say, BEFORE the O'Bama admin.. All those things were legal, and Trump was just returning to sanity?
Many states have anti-baiting rules for deer hunting. In Michigan hunters can bait in the Upper Peninsula but not the Lower Peninsula.
Dougnuts? No.
Bearclaws? YEs.
As stated above, the Bear population must be culled or they just die of starvation. Or they make a nuisance of themselves by being TrashDump bears.
But who really cares? Not the liberal/left. They hate the Hunters more then they like the Bears.
It says they are going back to the rules that existed under Obama.
What were the rules before Obama? Same? Or is he the one who changed them and pdjt just changed them back?
If these were Obama rules I call "disinformation" on the reporter for the wording.
No I can't read the article so have to go by what Ann excerpts
John Henry
Well, they tried to lure the bears by leaving a pile of Mary's Gone Super Seed Crackers (gluten-free) with some Chao vegan cheese. It didn't work. The bears went starving. So they tried it with some Krispy Kreme's and the bears came flocking. Now the bears wonder around looking for the 'Hot Now' sign to be lit up again.
Levi Starks, you hit it out of the park!
Ding Ding Ding... I'm outraged!
Mission accomplished.
The NYT piece is simply superb propaganda. Contrasting the new rules as Biden v Trump cleverly ignores the preexistence of the practice during the Obama administration, and the heartstrings are suitably tugged as no environmental or social context is provided that might explain or justify the practices. Bravo, NYT, another day at the agitprop factory. The beauty part is that there will never be an accounting for the endless stream of spin. All the Walter Durantys get to keep their Pulitzers, along with their second homes.
What the hell difference does it make how they are culled. You control the number that can be culled and be done with it.
Next you will have to count coup on the bear before you shoot it.
I’m all for hunting but what kind of man baits bear with a donut? Where I grew up that’s a mark of shame you could never remove.
The New York Times has a lot of experience with bear hunting in Alaska. No doubt the typical reader, a middle aged white woman, knows a lot about hunting bears.
I can't imagine, and have been unable to find any justification, for killing cubs or pups in the den. What on earth were the Feds thinking when they implemented this rule? The state does not allow the killing of mothers with cubs so why should the Feds think it is okay? I can see some lower 48 rancher who is losing livestock to bears or wolves being in favor of about any method of culling wolves or bear, but I can't imagine the park service doing so. From my personal experience there is no shortage of Brown Bears in Alaska, but if someone other than indigenous people wants to take one it should be in a sporting manner just like any other hunting scenario. What the hell were these people thinking?
"Shoot 'em...politely." -Captian Malcom Reynolds
Maine has a bear hunting season. I think about 3800/year are killed. The three primary methods of hunting bears in Maine are (1) baiting (bags of old donuts work best), (2) dogs and (3) trapping. Using dogs to track, tree and shoot a bear is hard work so most bear hunters (about 67%) just lay bait and wait. Tracking with dogs are accounts for another 25% and trapping the remainder, although a handful of bear are shot every year incidentally during deer season. Bear hunting remains very controversial in Maine and there have been a number of referenda seeking to end the hunt, but they’ve lost very time. I think that is because the state biologists favor the bear hunt as a way to control the bear population and keep them from impinging on human populations.
"restore restrictions that existed during the Obama administration"
As opposed to the restrictions the Obama administration relaxed, in order to allow wind farms to kill more birds?
On January 17, 2017, the number of bald eagles that can be killed by wind farm permit holders will increase from the current legal number of 1,100 to 4,200—almost a quadrupling. The Fish and Wildlife Service is issuing new 30-year permits that allow the additional eagles to be killed or injured without prosecution under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
I guess some animals are more equal than others, after all.
JFK might have said he objected to the use of donuts to bait bears--not so much because of the ethical treatment of animals, but because it's the waste of a good treat. Hell, aren't bears famous for eating just about anything? Like Bill Clinton? Pork rinds, if the Bushes have any leftovers. I've even heard of some people using Berliners--now that is just heresy. We all like a good treat once in a while.
A good portion of those hunters in Alaska are subsistence hunters. Meat in the freezer. Pelts to the fur buyer.
I’m certain that Trump made bear doughnuts one of the major goals of his administration, along with containing China and securing the border.
Levi Starks said...
So now all these species of animals can hold their head high when the 7mm magnum bullet pierces their chest cavity, knowing that they’ve been taken down by a worthy adversary.
Not just some rich slob who’s working on his 2nd 6 pack of the day.
Now, let’s imagine the human uterus as a cave, and an unborn baby as a bear cub.
+1
If you see a difference between shooting a bear in it's sleep, when it is eating a donut, or eating some rotten fruit you have some issues.
If you think it is OK to kill a fetus then sell the dismembered baby parts you are far worse than any hunter.
Or a cougar killing a deer.
First of all, it's the NYT. Why would you take anything published in the NYT at face value? They know nothing about hunting. They know nothing about wildlife population management. They have always have an agenda and they will seize every opportunity to remind you "Orange man BAD!!!"
So many people commenting here suffer from Gell-Mann Amnesia.
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” - Michael Crichton
Sorry to interrupt the knee jerk reactionfest here, but a little more reading down the page leads you to this quote:
“This proposal would lower the risk that bears will associate food at bait stations with humans and become conditioned to eating human-produced foods, thereby creating a public safety concern,” the National Park Service said in a statement.
This is blindingly obvious even for a city slicker like myself. Not sure why it didn't occur to you masters of the hunting arts, since I thought everyone knew about not giving human food to wild animals and especially bears for this reason. Perhaps because it involves thinking about the impacts of one person's behavior on the safety of others (aka socialism)? Or just lack of literacy? Even Ann seems to have confused the opinions of animal rights activists with the government's position.
"Now, let’s imagine the human uterus as a cave, and an unborn baby as a bear cub."
What if -- and I'm just spitballing here, bear with me (haha get it?) -- you imagined the human uterus as an organ in a woman's body?
@Daniel 12: "This is blindingly obvious even for a city slicker like myself. Not sure why it didn't occur to you masters of the hunting arts, since I thought everyone knew about not giving human food to wild animals and especially bears for this reason."
Obvious to you because it's blindingly wrong? Bears will sniff out any odorous food source at all. It might be natural wild berries, deer, and salmon or a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. They've got great noses and strong claws. Visit any National Park with a bear population and watch the naive tourists ignore the many, many warnings to not leave food in cars or tents. Watch their reactions and listen to their screams as the bears smash into their Toyotas to get those juicy, ripe apples from Whole Foods market.
Second, the baited bears will go back to the bait source and the hunters be there. The bears are going to die. They may well develop a taste for doughnuts...but that preference is irrelevant to the dead bear in 10 minutes or 10 days. In rural human areas killing problem wild animals is a routine but required chore. Beyond this, bears, wolves, and mountain lions also develop a taste for penned cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens too. Farm animal scents resemble deer more than doughnuts and they are 'human food.' The bears don't care.
What about a pic-a-nic basket?
Daniel12 (who is SUPER SMART)said...
“This proposal would lower the risk that bears will associate food at bait stations with humans and become conditioned to eating human-produced foods, thereby creating a public safety concern,” the National Park Service said in a statement.
This is blindingly obvious even for a city slicker like myself. Not sure why it didn't occur to you masters of the hunting arts,
So, Daniel12.. I have a couple of questions, for a SUPER SMART person, like you
a) do You think that bears don't ALREADY like sweets (like Honey.. and Donuts)??
b) do you think that after a bear is shot DEAD, he will communicate with the living bears, and tell them:
EAT the Donuts!!! They Are Delicious!!!
Do you (as a SUPER SMART person) think SHOOTING bears that eat donuts will encourage bears to eat donuts?
Just how SUPER SMART are you? I'm Starting to wonder
Althouse,
You are a gem! That is all.
Yeah go argue with the National Park Service, keyboard warriors.
you can kill them but you can't trick them? WTF is wrong with these people?
I'm not into hunting for sport so I am not offended by the unsportsman like notion of baiting bears with doughnuts or going into their dens while they are asleep. At that point they are like rodents or any other "pests" you want to eliminate, you do it as efficiently as possible; except in this case of culling the herds you are actually doing the bear population a service. It's not necessarily fair to the individual bears who might or might not be the ones who would starve to death, who's to know? For me the point is how to cull the herd with the least danger to the unprofessional amateur hunters who are doing this. Make it as easy as possible.
I recall how big game hunters got a bad rap for their safaris to Africa and Texas and then learned that the enormous fees they pay actually fund the game reserves and protect endangered species, which would otherwise be unprotected and are victimized by poachers who have no restrictions.
@Rosalyn C., it’s Alaska. I imagine that most hunting up there is subsistence and self-defense, not sport.
Rosalyn C. said...
Remember those baby harp seals? At the time Newfoundland and Labrador were considered the Appalachia of Canada. Remote, backwards and poor. It turns out that the baby seal harvest was a cash crop to the people Newfoundland and Labrador. Many of whom were First Nation people. For many of them the only cash they would see all year.
It would be really nice if the idjit class from the urban zones would mind their own damn business about wildlife management.
I'm not going to pontificate on the Alaskan situation; I am not an Alaskan, and I'm smart enough to know that I don't know more than the locals do. The NYT story is pure propaganda, though--All the hallmarks. They are demonstrating rather more sympathy for Alaskan bears and wolves than they ever did for Ukrainian peasants during Walter Duranty's reporting on the Holodomor. 'Nuff said on that point.
What I will pontificate on is the sheer idiocy of the city-born morons who think they know everything about everything. Locally, we have bears. Lots and lots of bears; along with deer. Time was, the valley I live in was just another valley; you could hunt, down here, and the pressure from that hunting kept the wildlife at a distance. Then, a few decades back, some of the city-slicker transplants spotted some of the long-time locals taking a couple of deer that had demonstrated a lack of survival instinct by venturing into the now-residential zone on the valley floor. That, coupled with an incident involving another idjit transplant that fired a rifle at someone's home, led to an outright ban on hunting throughout the valley.
Which has had the follow-on effect that we've got a surfeit of deer, these days, all of which are habituated to humans and their accessories. Damn things don't even back off when you chase them down with rocks and sticks while they're eating your garden and ornamentals. The other problem is, they banned hunting cougars with dogs. Which means that now we also have cougars that come with the deer, and on and on with the wildlife. We never had this problem when I was in high school and this valley was still hunted; you never, ever saw deer and such down off the mountains around here. Now? LOL... Bears, cougars, deer, you name it; we have it. In the last three years, we've had the following incidents: One saw a cougar try and take an 8 year-old boy for supper, another saw an incident where a cougar was stalking a jogger, and still a third and most recent saw a woman attacked by the same bear that a neighbor and I spent the summer calling in to the state fish and wildlife people as being entirely too casual around people. We begged them to trap her and relocate, but they refused, and this nuisance bear kept raiding trash and bothering people until one morning a woman let her dog out to do its thing, and the bear took exception. Bear's been taken down, permanently, and the two cubs she had with her are now likely to be destroyed as well.
All this because some idjits didn't like what they saw, and who think that nature is some damn Disney documentary. End state? More dead animals; I can go up into the forest this year and show you a few dozen starved-to-death deer that are the direct result of overpopulation meeting a normal winter that covers up their forage with food. Did they open up hunting more, this last fall? Oh, no; it was actually more restricted in the nearest open game management unit.
No idea about Alaska, but I'd appreciate the hell out of it if the city-born morons who've no idea how this stuff works would keep their noses in things they do know about, like urban crime and law enforcement... Oh. Right; they don't know sh*t about that, either.
Daniel12 said...
This is blindingly obvious even for a city slicker like myself. Not sure why it didn't occur to you masters of the hunting arts, since I thought everyone knew about not giving human food to wild animals and especially bears for this reason.
Wow.
People use donuts to bait bears because... bears like donuts... and this makes bears want to go for trash cans...
Because they wouldn't do that if hunters didn't use donuts for bait...
You are just a really fucking stupid person who is completely unaware of how stupid they look to other people.
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