Reviewing footage
November 3, 2010 – 8:58 PM CDT
Today was a day of reviewing video footage people have sent. Some of it was of Lily and Hope, which resurrected the intense challenges of the separation, decisions, and daily efforts. It also brought back the feelings of satisfaction of doing the right thing. Sue found this photo she took of a satisfying moment shortly after Hope discovered the feeding site in early June.
Another video we watched was an interview with hunters who had just taken their first bear. It shows the need to give protection to radio-collared bears. Simply asking hunters to spare radio-collared bears is not cutting it—especially when that message is couple with assurance that shooting a bear is legal. I don’t know how many times hunters have told us ‘If you don’t want radio-collared bears shot, make it illegal.’ The hunters in the interview seemed like good guys who had no idea what damage would be done taking a radio-collared bear.
The video shows the hunters with the bear they shot.
First hunter: I’ve been coming up here since about 1987 and this is actually the first live bear I’ve seen in the woods. I’ve never seen a bear. They’re just like the ghosts of the woods, I think.
Interviewer: Did this bear have a collar on?
Both hunters: No, no, nope.
Interviewer: What do you think you would do if you saw a collared bear in the woods?
First hunter: Now I’d probably let it go, but if I hadn’t gotten this one I’d probably shoot it so I could say I got that first one.
Second hunter: Get the first one under your belt, yes.
First hunter: But since I got one now, I’d probably let that one go so they can do the research that they’re trying to do on them.
My thought: Is that what the hunter thought when he shot Sarah, snipped off her ribbons, wiped the blood off the collar except for specks under the flap, and turned it in anonymously? We must get protection before Lily, Hope, June, or any other radio-collared bear comes to a hunters’ bait next fall.
Dr. Garshelis asked for more information about wounding loss, especially about the Ontario data that showed the 13% wounding loss. The information from Ontario should arrive here next week. Meanwhile, here is a link to an article in an Ontario magazine http://onnaturemagazine.com/why-fear-the-bear.html/2 with quotes by Ontario bear biologist Dr. Martyn Obbard and other notables, including Ainslie Willock, who stated, “Even with bait, one in eight bears killed is wounded,” basing her statement on that same wounding data.
Additional data on wounding loss were published in the peer-reviewed journal Ursus (http://www.bearbiology.com/fileadmin/tpl/Downloads/URSUS/Vol_16_2/Koehler_Pierce_Vol_16_2.pdf) Of 39 radio-collared bears shot during hunting season in Washington, 5 (13%) escaped and died (Page 161). These 39 that were killed do not include wounded bears that survived.
When we speak of wounding loss, we broadly think of bears shot and lost by the hunter. Some die. Some survive. We think of wounding loss as one of the biggest problem in bear hunting. It is the reason we join the chorus of hunters who urge all hunters to take the time to pick a killing shot so they don’t wound bear after bear before killing one on the spot. More on this when we get the Ontario information.
It was one of you who brought the Washington study to our attention. Thank you. So many of you are working behind the scenes in so many ways. Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center