bear shot in defense.....

BadMedicine · August 5, 2000, 01:21 AM

Sorry, but I had to ask, I don't know how many of you are here in alaska, but I was wondering if you'd heard about the guy who shot a black bear in defence of his daughter on the Kenai river a couple of days ago.
People had been seeing it scavenging salmon carcasses for a few days prior, but when it walked out of the brush by a 13 year old girl things got messy. The dad told the girl to move away and she did but the bear kept creeping closer. The man shouted and tried to scare it, but it kept easing closer. He said in the report he was going to fire a warning shot over it's back but wasn't sure he'd have time to get off a second shot if it charged. He shot it once in the neck with his .44 mag and dropped it. then in compliance with AF&G self defence regulations he skinned it and was going to surrender the skin and claws to AF&G. Alot of people down on the banks were yelling at him and cussing him for shooting it. There was an investigation and they found that the guy had a license and was in an open black bear area (black bear is open year-round in most areas). So they dropped the investigation and I think are giving his rug back.
some people wrote into the editor of the news paper about how this guy shouldn't have shot such a good tempered bear. Why do these people live in alaska if they don't like hunting? giving this guy a bad rap for shooting a legal bear is ignorant. Especially a bear that had lost it's fear of man. Pan handleing bears are the most likely to attack anyway, and this one had been down there a while living off of human scraps. Let me know if you saw this article Kieth,
Badmedicine.

Keith Rogan · August 5, 2000, 02:19 AM

I didn't see the article but that sounds pretty typical. Open season or not, that bear was close enough to the child to reasonably justify shooting it.
But this is one of the things I was trying to point out in the other thread, you shoot a bear and people are all over you!
What if this had been a brown bear, instead of just a blackie - and not in season? This poor sap would be in court and every granola cruncher from Homer to Tok would be in there giving character references for the bear.

"The bear was merely a product of his environment and that bastid shouldn't have shot him"!

------------------
Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

BadMedicine · August 5, 2000, 03:46 AM

"every granola cruncher from Homer to Tok would be in there giving character references for the bear."

hilarious

Art Eatman · August 5, 2000, 03:31 PM

Keith, have you ever considered taking a small group of granola-crunchers on a guided tour for brown-bear watching? Let'em get just as close as they wish to these harmless Teddy-critters? Reinforcing their belief that no harm is possible to those who are pure of heart?

Don't use your real name, of course.

Now, considering that during the 1970s the comment was, "A law'n'order freak is a Liberal who's been mugged", I rather wonder at the possibility of some attitude adjustments.

Just a thought.

Art

dZ · August 5, 2000, 03:47 PM

Make sure they have an anchovie pizza in their packs and send them out for a day with the bears.

dZ

labgrade · August 5, 2000, 05:24 PM

Coupla questions ....

If he had a license, legal area, etc. - why did he do the "self defence" anything? Why not just tag the critter & drag it on homeward?

Don't critters of all kinds scavenge salmon carcasses? Seems that's gotta be one of the most protein-rich easy thing (what could be easier than "catching" a dead salmon?) in existence.

Art, that's great! Wonder how long a "pet the nice Griz" hike would last?

"Here Granola-head. Hand me that $1K bill & hold this salmon in your left hand & just pet with the right. That's just right. Ayuh."

(& when they start rolling you over, they're really only playing. & if you feign death, they'll only eat your back.)

BadMedicine · August 5, 2000, 07:43 PM

First of all the guy didn't know he was in a legal area nd they were in season, he just shot in defense and got lucky to keep the rug.
Second, Alaska is one of the few states where you don't have to buy a tag for every damn thing you shoot. You just buy the one license for around $50, and then you can just pick up the tags for free, you need them but they're free. The only tags you need to buy are griz and musk ox, and both of those are only $25!! That's why alaska is so great, for a mere $50 you can shoot, like 5 caribou, 5 deer, three blackbear, a bull moose, and a cow moose in some management, areas a dall sheep, a mountain goat, ten wolves, and many other miscilaneous vermin. I know in washinton a deer tag was $18, and elk $24, turkey $18, and so on, they got you comin' and goin' and we couldn't hardly afford to hunt all the stuff we wanted too. Times the price of all those tags by the five in our family who like to hunt, and it get expensive.
And Kieth, for your new guiding business might I suggest Filling their pack boards with bacon. Tell them that the scent lures the bears close enough for pictures, but not to worry, because as long as you don't bother them, they wont bother you.

paratrooper · August 5, 2000, 08:24 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Keith Rogan:
This poor sap would be in court and every granola cruncher from Homer to Tok would be in there giving character references for the bear.
[/quote]

Saying things like " Your Honor , I personally saw this unfortunate bear hugging homeless people during an unusually cold winter ." Or " I have seen this bear sharing his fish with slower , dumber bears ."
These people will never go away .

------------------
TOM
SASS AMERICAN LEGION NRA GOA

Keith Rogan · August 6, 2000, 01:11 PM

Bad Medicine will back me on this, as unbelievable as it sounds.
The Anchorage Daily News "huntin n' fishin" editor is a guy named Craig Medred. This paper is the statewide source of news (Anchorage being the only large city in the state) and everyone knows and reads Medred.

Anyhoo, a few years ago Medred is out hunting with a scoped Casull when a brown bear sow and some 3 year old cubs begin shadowing him - you have to remember that brown bear cubs are roughly the size of large black bears, 300-350 pounds. A bad situation.
To make a long story short, not wishing to stand up to 3 (or 4?) bears, he edges away, they follow and eventually attack.
A bear knocks him down (he missed his first shot as it rushed him) and while its literally chewing on his leg, he shoots it.
You'd think this was pretty clear-cut case of self defense wouldn't you?
He had no legal problems but the paper was DELUGED with protests that this horrible man had shot this bear! How awful!

I was pilloried in a similar manner by the press, and Medred wrote a piece defending me. I'm grateful to him.

Basically, in my case about an hour after the mauling, the cubs showed up again - returning to the last place they saw mama. They parked themselves about 15 or 20 yards away and began bawling at us. We didn't know if mama was still alive (she was as it turned out) and might come back to "defend" them again. We tried to drive them off with gunshots and rocks, but they wouldn't leave. So, we shot them to shut them up. Or, I should say my partner shot them since I was blazing away with only my left eye and arm and not doing very well.
The state boys were fine with that, if mama was alive we were in great danger and couldn't leave. If mama was dead, the cubs were dead anyway. No problem legally.

The editorial pages of the Anchorage paper ripped me apart for weeks over that. Out here in the "bush" people know better and there was no local criticism at all.

If you shoot a bear in this state you'd better be "clean" because the suburban Anchorage housewives are going to be putting on the pressure to have you prosecuted.

------------------
Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

Keith Rogan · August 6, 2000, 01:40 PM

Art,

Without giving names, our local granola contingent is lead by one of the "Medical Professionals" in town - a European immigrant.
I got medevaced back to town and I'm laying there in the ER while everyone is oohing and aahing ("Hey! Check this guy out!"), pulling leaves, rocks and sticks out of my ass and toying with my scalp (You got it sideways, it goes back on like this...).
And I'm lying there in the middle of all this, feeling detached and hoping somebody will get around to offering me some morphine since I know a whiskey and a Marlboro is out of the question.
A face looms over mine (its the granola-crunching, European medical professional to whom I referred earlier), and says "Don't you know better than to get between a sow and cubs? tsk tsk."
I mean, its like right there in the "Welcome To Kodiak" brochure, Item #2 - "Don't Get Between A Sow And Cubs". Right after "Don't Tell A Commercial Fisherman He Smells Bad".
He's read the brochure, he knows that if I got mauled its because I didn't follow the rules. I wasn't covered with bear bells and didn't even have a whistle. Its all very simple, don't you see?

------------------
Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

Jay Baker · August 6, 2000, 03:35 PM

Keith, the ignorant bliss ninnies are everywhere. Here in Idaho (you know, good ol' conservative Idaho), the left wing, ignorant bliss ninnies also abound, and are out in force.

Look at the masthead of your newspaper. Who owns it??

Here, the largest paper is the Idaho Statesman, owned by the extrememly left wing, gun hating, hunting hating, Marxist loving Gannett Corp. The Id. Statesman takes the same "anti" direction as your paper. They're almost all owned by the large corps, which are all anti-everything which we hold dear... such as the Constitution of the United States.

Just wondering..... J.B.

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August 5, 2000, 01:21 AM	#1
BadMedicine Junior member Join Date: July 7, 2000 Location: Anchorage Posts: 863	Sorry, but I had to ask, I don't know how many of you are here in alaska, but I was wondering if you'd heard about the guy who shot a black bear in defence of his daughter on the Kenai river a couple of days ago. People had been seeing it scavenging salmon carcasses for a few days prior, but when it walked out of the brush by a 13 year old girl things got messy. The dad told the girl to move away and she did but the bear kept creeping closer. The man shouted and tried to scare it, but it kept easing closer. He said in the report he was going to fire a warning shot over it's back but wasn't sure he'd have time to get off a second shot if it charged. He shot it once in the neck with his .44 mag and dropped it. then in compliance with AF&G self defence regulations he skinned it and was going to surrender the skin and claws to AF&G. Alot of people down on the banks were yelling at him and cussing him for shooting it. There was an investigation and they found that the guy had a license and was in an open black bear area (black bear is open year-round in most areas). So they dropped the investigation and I think are giving his rug back. some people wrote into the editor of the news paper about how this guy shouldn't have shot such a good tempered bear. Why do these people live in alaska if they don't like hunting? giving this guy a bad rap for shooting a legal bear is ignorant. Especially a bear that had lost it's fear of man. Pan handleing bears are the most likely to attack anyway, and this one had been down there a while living off of human scraps. Let me know if you saw this article Kieth, Badmedicine.

August 5, 2000, 02:19 AM	#2
Keith Rogan Senior Member Join Date: March 11, 1999 Location: Kodiak, Alaska Posts: 1,014	I didn't see the article but that sounds pretty typical. Open season or not, that bear was close enough to the child to reasonably justify shooting it. But this is one of the things I was trying to point out in the other thread, you shoot a bear and people are all over you! What if this had been a brown bear, instead of just a blackie - and not in season? This poor sap would be in court and every granola cruncher from Homer to Tok would be in there giving character references for the bear. "The bear was merely a product of his environment and that bastid shouldn't have shot him"! ------------------ Keith The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

August 5, 2000, 03:46 AM	#3
BadMedicine Junior member Join Date: July 7, 2000 Location: Anchorage Posts: 863	"every granola cruncher from Homer to Tok would be in there giving character references for the bear." hilarious

August 5, 2000, 03:31 PM	#4
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	Keith, have you ever considered taking a small group of granola-crunchers on a guided tour for brown-bear watching? Let'em get just as close as they wish to these harmless Teddy-critters? Reinforcing their belief that no harm is possible to those who are pure of heart? Don't use your real name, of course. Now, considering that during the 1970s the comment was, "A law'n'order freak is a Liberal who's been mugged", I rather wonder at the possibility of some attitude adjustments. Just a thought. Art

August 5, 2000, 03:47 PM	#5
dZ Senior Member Join Date: May 31, 1999 Location: Exiled, Fetid Swamp, DC Posts: 7,548	Make sure they have an anchovie pizza in their packs and send them out for a day with the bears. dZ

August 5, 2000, 05:24 PM	#6
labgrade Member In Memoriam Join Date: November 29, 1999 Location: west of a small town, CO Posts: 4,346	Coupla questions .... If he had a license, legal area, etc. - why did he do the "self defence" anything? Why not just tag the critter & drag it on homeward? Don't critters of all kinds scavenge salmon carcasses? Seems that's gotta be one of the most protein-rich easy thing (what could be easier than "catching" a dead salmon?) in existence. Art, that's great! Wonder how long a "pet the nice Griz" hike would last? "Here Granola-head. Hand me that $1K bill & hold this salmon in your left hand & just pet with the right. That's just right. Ayuh." (& when they start rolling you over, they're really only playing. & if you feign death, they'll only eat your back.)

August 5, 2000, 07:43 PM	#7
BadMedicine Junior member Join Date: July 7, 2000 Location: Anchorage Posts: 863	First of all the guy didn't know he was in a legal area nd they were in season, he just shot in defense and got lucky to keep the rug. Second, Alaska is one of the few states where you don't have to buy a tag for every damn thing you shoot. You just buy the one license for around $50, and then you can just pick up the tags for free, you need them but they're free. The only tags you need to buy are griz and musk ox, and both of those are only $25!! That's why alaska is so great, for a mere $50 you can shoot, like 5 caribou, 5 deer, three blackbear, a bull moose, and a cow moose in some management, areas a dall sheep, a mountain goat, ten wolves, and many other miscilaneous vermin. I know in washinton a deer tag was $18, and elk $24, turkey $18, and so on, they got you comin' and goin' and we couldn't hardly afford to hunt all the stuff we wanted too. Times the price of all those tags by the five in our family who like to hunt, and it get expensive. And Kieth, for your new guiding business might I suggest Filling their pack boards with bacon. Tell them that the scent lures the bears close enough for pictures, but not to worry, because as long as you don't bother them, they wont bother you.

August 5, 2000, 08:24 PM	#8
paratrooper Senior Member Join Date: March 31, 2000 Location: Kingman AZ Posts: 1,290	<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Keith Rogan: This poor sap would be in court and every granola cruncher from Homer to Tok would be in there giving character references for the bear. [/quote] Saying things like " Your Honor , I personally saw this unfortunate bear hugging homeless people during an unusually cold winter ." Or " I have seen this bear sharing his fish with slower , dumber bears ." These people will never go away . ------------------ TOM SASS AMERICAN LEGION NRA GOA

August 6, 2000, 01:11 PM	#9
Keith Rogan Senior Member Join Date: March 11, 1999 Location: Kodiak, Alaska Posts: 1,014	Bad Medicine will back me on this, as unbelievable as it sounds. The Anchorage Daily News "huntin n' fishin" editor is a guy named Craig Medred. This paper is the statewide source of news (Anchorage being the only large city in the state) and everyone knows and reads Medred. Anyhoo, a few years ago Medred is out hunting with a scoped Casull when a brown bear sow and some 3 year old cubs begin shadowing him - you have to remember that brown bear cubs are roughly the size of large black bears, 300-350 pounds. A bad situation. To make a long story short, not wishing to stand up to 3 (or 4?) bears, he edges away, they follow and eventually attack. A bear knocks him down (he missed his first shot as it rushed him) and while its literally chewing on his leg, he shoots it. You'd think this was pretty clear-cut case of self defense wouldn't you? He had no legal problems but the paper was DELUGED with protests that this horrible man had shot this bear! How awful! I was pilloried in a similar manner by the press, and Medred wrote a piece defending me. I'm grateful to him. Basically, in my case about an hour after the mauling, the cubs showed up again - returning to the last place they saw mama. They parked themselves about 15 or 20 yards away and began bawling at us. We didn't know if mama was still alive (she was as it turned out) and might come back to "defend" them again. We tried to drive them off with gunshots and rocks, but they wouldn't leave. So, we shot them to shut them up. Or, I should say my partner shot them since I was blazing away with only my left eye and arm and not doing very well. The state boys were fine with that, if mama was alive we were in great danger and couldn't leave. If mama was dead, the cubs were dead anyway. No problem legally. The editorial pages of the Anchorage paper ripped me apart for weeks over that. Out here in the "bush" people know better and there was no local criticism at all. If you shoot a bear in this state you'd better be "clean" because the suburban Anchorage housewives are going to be putting on the pressure to have you prosecuted. ------------------ Keith The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

August 6, 2000, 01:40 PM	#10
Keith Rogan Senior Member Join Date: March 11, 1999 Location: Kodiak, Alaska Posts: 1,014	Art, Without giving names, our local granola contingent is lead by one of the "Medical Professionals" in town - a European immigrant. I got medevaced back to town and I'm laying there in the ER while everyone is oohing and aahing ("Hey! Check this guy out!"), pulling leaves, rocks and sticks out of my ass and toying with my scalp (You got it sideways, it goes back on like this...). And I'm lying there in the middle of all this, feeling detached and hoping somebody will get around to offering me some morphine since I know a whiskey and a Marlboro is out of the question. A face looms over mine (its the granola-crunching, European medical professional to whom I referred earlier), and says "Don't you know better than to get between a sow and cubs? tsk tsk." I mean, its like right there in the "Welcome To Kodiak" brochure, Item #2 - "Don't Get Between A Sow And Cubs". Right after "Don't Tell A Commercial Fisherman He Smells Bad". He's read the brochure, he knows that if I got mauled its because I didn't follow the rules. I wasn't covered with bear bells and didn't even have a whistle. Its all very simple, don't you see? ------------------ Keith The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

August 6, 2000, 03:35 PM	#11
Jay Baker Senior Member Join Date: March 26, 2000 Location: S.W. Idaho Posts: 1,294	Keith, the ignorant bliss ninnies are everywhere. Here in Idaho (you know, good ol' conservative Idaho), the left wing, ignorant bliss ninnies also abound, and are out in force. Look at the masthead of your newspaper. Who owns it?? Here, the largest paper is the Idaho Statesman, owned by the extrememly left wing, gun hating, hunting hating, Marxist loving Gannett Corp. The Id. Statesman takes the same "anti" direction as your paper. They're almost all owned by the large corps, which are all anti-everything which we hold dear... such as the Constitution of the United States. Just wondering..... J.B.