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A Pennsylvania court has fined a hunter around £4,500 plus court costs for illegally baiting a twenty-stone North American brown bear with doughnuts.
Parts of Pennsylvania allow people to apply for a licence to hunt bears during the three-day bear hunting season. A Wildlife Conservation Officer spotted the man in question driving a truck loaded with pastries one week before the start of the bear season. Suspicions were aroused and the officer checked the truck’s license number with bear check stations.
After his arrest, the man admitted using pastries to illegally bait what would have been the largest bear killed during the 2009 season. In addition to the fine, the man faces a possible three-year hunting ban.
Bears are a known problem in parts of America and, indeed, one trashed my local supermarket in Alaska one afternoon when it came down from the mountain when lured by the smell of cooking meat. Another came down for a bath in someone’s swimming pool one hot day when I was living in California. In both cases, the animals were tranquillised and transported to places where they couldn’t cause a problem.
I could never agree that private individuals could go out armed with powerful guns to hunt bears and this view wasn’t popular with a couple of my outdoor-type friends. It seemed to me that the best way of dealing with bears when they became a problem was to leave it to the professionals who could, if possible, remove the bears to where they couldn’t harm anyone. But, as I say, it was a minority view.
I suppose one of the problems with bears is that they become attracted to some of the things we humans like, and they have learned that we leave much stuff around. Visit one of the great picnic sites in north America or Canada and you will see signs asking you to take your litter and leftover food away with you so that they don’t attract bears which could then harm other visitors. When I lived in Alaska and California, my trash bins were of the bear-proof type, but that didn’t stop some people just dumping their rubbish which then attracted the racoons, mountain cats, bears and other animals. There was one tourist spot in Alaska where the local brown bear would emerge from the trees to feast on the remains of the salmon barbecues cooked up four or five times a day, though so far as I know no-one was ever harmed by this elderly creature which I’ve seen myself a couple of times.
But in this case, a magnificent beast has been killed illegally and unnecessarily.
.
A Pennsylvania court has fined a hunter around £4,500 plus court costs for illegally baiting a twenty-stone North American brown bear with doughnuts.
Parts of Pennsylvania allow people to apply for a licence to hunt bears during the three-day bear hunting season. A Wildlife Conservation Officer spotted the man in question driving a truck loaded with pastries one week before the start of the bear season. Suspicions were aroused and the officer checked the truck’s license number with bear check stations.
After his arrest, the man admitted using pastries to illegally bait what would have been the largest bear killed during the 2009 season. In addition to the fine, the man faces a possible three-year hunting ban.
Bears are a known problem in parts of America and, indeed, one trashed my local supermarket in Alaska one afternoon when it came down from the mountain when lured by the smell of cooking meat. Another came down for a bath in someone’s swimming pool one hot day when I was living in California. In both cases, the animals were tranquillised and transported to places where they couldn’t cause a problem.
I could never agree that private individuals could go out armed with powerful guns to hunt bears and this view wasn’t popular with a couple of my outdoor-type friends. It seemed to me that the best way of dealing with bears when they became a problem was to leave it to the professionals who could, if possible, remove the bears to where they couldn’t harm anyone. But, as I say, it was a minority view.
I suppose one of the problems with bears is that they become attracted to some of the things we humans like, and they have learned that we leave much stuff around. Visit one of the great picnic sites in north America or Canada and you will see signs asking you to take your litter and leftover food away with you so that they don’t attract bears which could then harm other visitors. When I lived in Alaska and California, my trash bins were of the bear-proof type, but that didn’t stop some people just dumping their rubbish which then attracted the racoons, mountain cats, bears and other animals. There was one tourist spot in Alaska where the local brown bear would emerge from the trees to feast on the remains of the salmon barbecues cooked up four or five times a day, though so far as I know no-one was ever harmed by this elderly creature which I’ve seen myself a couple of times.
But in this case, a magnificent beast has been killed illegally and unnecessarily.
.
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