RG_Adult_Onset_Hunter
Well-known member
The spring bear season in Washington State was quietly suspended this year without much ado from the hunting public. You might not have hear about this because it was done via a kind of odd rule making process administered by the WDFW special Commission. I did a more informative post in the Washington state specific issues forum HERE, but I felt the need to broadcast this to a larger audience. The way this went down is a blueprint for how hunting as a whole could be dismantled piecemeal by anti-hunting groups. We need to be proactive in our defense of science based wildlife management.
In the end it only took convincing 4 people to deprive myself and other Washington hunters of the ability to hunt bear in the Spring. Fall will be next, then cougar, then small game, then deer, then elk. We need to be active in preventing any losses here. Here is the letter I sent to the WDFW special committee today. If you know anyone who hunts in Washington state, please help them find there voice to talk to these people. The can be contacted at
[email protected]
509-892-1001, please call and respectfully push back on this decision:
In Defense of the Spring Bear Hunt
My name is Ryan Garrett; I hunt bears to provide better nutrition for my family than can be found at the local grocery store. I started with that sentence because it is of key importance. Bear hunting is easily and incorrectly vilified as a “trophy hunt”. Bear meat is highly valued among its hunters for its unique flavor and fat content. If that is not enough, RCW 77.08.010 makes it quite clear that it would be illegal for hunters to recklessly render that meat unfit for human consumption. To put it bluntly, calling bear hunting a “trophy hunt” is incorrect. Such terminology is meant to manipulate and should be regarded with skepticism.
I am dismayed that 4 members of the Fish and Wildlife Special Commission listened to such emotional rhetoric as opposed to the science-based approach recommended by WDFW staff. To each emotional point brought up in the special commission meeting there was a scientific response in support of the hunt. Some of the answers could have been clearer, or more forceful, which is why I am writing in today. While I would love to keep my comments strictly data-based, it’s impossible to do so while addressing what Fred Koontz framed as a “societal [acceptance] issue”.
The Humane Society has been one of the most vocal opponents of the spring bear hunt. In a press release after the vote they titled “Washington wildlife commissioners vote against spring 2022 trophy hunt of black bears and their cubs” they reiterated a number of their arguments against the “trophy” hunt. Since we keep records on this sort of thing, I wanted to rebut a few of their “facts”:
A large number of vociferous folks have spoken out against the spring bear hunt. I would suspect you might have heard from more hunters in the public comment session had the issue been framed as an ethical debate on bear hunting (which it absolutely was not) and had the meeting not been scheduled in the middle of deer season. Sentiment does not always set good policy. Taxes are not popular, but we do need them. If the decision to suspend the bear hunt was purely to promote wildlife well-being, hunters would be the first in line to thank the committee for their sound judgement.
I’d like a chance to talk to the committee members for a brief time, if only to better understand what reasoning was applied. My hope is that I can better frame the argument that hunting as a way of life should not be dismantled one piece at a time. It is my way of taking direct responsibility for how my life is sustained. I’d be willing to argue the ethics of that any day.
Thank you for your time,
Ryan Garrett
Bear Hunter
Colville, WA 99114
In the end it only took convincing 4 people to deprive myself and other Washington hunters of the ability to hunt bear in the Spring. Fall will be next, then cougar, then small game, then deer, then elk. We need to be active in preventing any losses here. Here is the letter I sent to the WDFW special committee today. If you know anyone who hunts in Washington state, please help them find there voice to talk to these people. The can be contacted at
[email protected]
509-892-1001, please call and respectfully push back on this decision:
In Defense of the Spring Bear Hunt
My name is Ryan Garrett; I hunt bears to provide better nutrition for my family than can be found at the local grocery store. I started with that sentence because it is of key importance. Bear hunting is easily and incorrectly vilified as a “trophy hunt”. Bear meat is highly valued among its hunters for its unique flavor and fat content. If that is not enough, RCW 77.08.010 makes it quite clear that it would be illegal for hunters to recklessly render that meat unfit for human consumption. To put it bluntly, calling bear hunting a “trophy hunt” is incorrect. Such terminology is meant to manipulate and should be regarded with skepticism.
I am dismayed that 4 members of the Fish and Wildlife Special Commission listened to such emotional rhetoric as opposed to the science-based approach recommended by WDFW staff. To each emotional point brought up in the special commission meeting there was a scientific response in support of the hunt. Some of the answers could have been clearer, or more forceful, which is why I am writing in today. While I would love to keep my comments strictly data-based, it’s impossible to do so while addressing what Fred Koontz framed as a “societal [acceptance] issue”.
The Humane Society has been one of the most vocal opponents of the spring bear hunt. In a press release after the vote they titled “Washington wildlife commissioners vote against spring 2022 trophy hunt of black bears and their cubs” they reiterated a number of their arguments against the “trophy” hunt. Since we keep records on this sort of thing, I wanted to rebut a few of their “facts”:
- “Fact” No 1. “Spring bear hunts are especially cruel because trophy hunters often kill mother bears with newborn cubs.”…” During the 2021 Washington spring bear hunt, trophy hunters killed 45 female bears, likely resulting in the orphaning and death of numerous cubs.”
- This statement is both mathematically and emotionally misleading. Of the animals inspected last year, only 1 out of the 124 inspected animals was a lactating female. Given what we know about the bi-annual reproduction of female bears, this number would likely be much higher if hunters were firing at the first bear they saw. Also, a quick glance at harvest reporting shows that significantly more males are killed than females. A reasonable scientific conclusion here is that hunters are being selective. For a fun thought exercise put yourself in the shoes of a bear hunter. If you are looking for a “trophy,” or for meat, would you rather target a 75lb sow, or a 500lb boar?
- “Fact” No 2. “Mother bears may forage at long distances from their cubs, resulting in hunters often killing lactating female bears. Hunters have difficulty determining the sex and nursing status of black bears.”
- Difficulty in determining sex does not equal randomized harvest as the harvest reporting I mentioned above demonstrates. It’s pretty difficult to identify sex and species of ducks while they are flying at high speed, but hunters legally have to do it every year. Mistakes can happen, but by and large hunters want healthy supplies of animals. Following our game laws and being conscientious about what we target (as the data shows is happening) allows us to achieve that goal. This statement by the humane society is laughably false because of the word “often” - one lactating female out of last years’ sample group does not meet that criteria.
- “Fact” No 3. “Bears are highly intelligent, and provide specific benefits to the ecosystem, spreading more seeds than birds, opening up forest canopies allowing sunlight to filter to the forest floor and enhancing biological diversity, and their feeding habits near riparian corridors help to fertilize trees with fish carcasses and their own nitrogen-rich urine. New research also finds that bears act as shields for gray foxes from other larger carnivores.”
- This is another emotionally misleading argument. It’s aimed to answer the question “Should we have bears?” This never should be a question any sane person would answer “No” to. It doesn’t answer a more complicated question of how we manage bear populations within a heavily managed ecosystem. Like it or not, human impact requires us to manage wildlife and wildland. Removing management tools based on popularity is not a good idea.
A large number of vociferous folks have spoken out against the spring bear hunt. I would suspect you might have heard from more hunters in the public comment session had the issue been framed as an ethical debate on bear hunting (which it absolutely was not) and had the meeting not been scheduled in the middle of deer season. Sentiment does not always set good policy. Taxes are not popular, but we do need them. If the decision to suspend the bear hunt was purely to promote wildlife well-being, hunters would be the first in line to thank the committee for their sound judgement.
I’d like a chance to talk to the committee members for a brief time, if only to better understand what reasoning was applied. My hope is that I can better frame the argument that hunting as a way of life should not be dismantled one piece at a time. It is my way of taking direct responsibility for how my life is sustained. I’d be willing to argue the ethics of that any day.
Thank you for your time,
Ryan Garrett
Bear Hunter
Colville, WA 99114
