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Brown Bear Management: Hunting Brown Bears |
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BEAR WARS: BROWN BEARS, WESTERN UNITED STATES / CANADA / RUSSIA
Ted Winnen with dead brown bear, October 2001. The large bear was killed on Hinchinbrook Island, Prince William Sound, Alaska. The photos are interesting in that they show the size of this brown bear in contrast to a grown man. Here we can see the size of the bear's paw is as large as this man's chest. From these photos we can understand why huge bears were hunted to near extinction in the lower 48 states. It was thought a major predator this huge could not coexist near humans - people did not tolerate that. In order to settle the country, large bears had to be killed wherever they were found. Although this bear was over 10 feet long and weighed over 1100 pounds, it was not, by any means, a record-breaker - bears larger than this one are out there in wilderness areas.
We have entitled this section “Bear Wars” not because bears are at war, but because at times, we seem to be at war with each other about bears. In recent years, bear hunts have become important topics of discussion, and killing what some refer to as nuisance bears makes the front page. We have found that most people either love bears or hate them, with a small percentage falling in the gray area of having no opinion either way. Most brown bears are killed in order to control populations near people, and not always for trophy hunts. But there are brown and grizzly bear hunts in Alaska and Canada that are held mostly for trophy hunting, for fur, mount, food, or sport, and trophy hunts are quite popular.
Brown bears and grizzly bears definitely posed a most serious problem for early explorers and settlers of this and other countries, due to their ferocity, and their strength, and their massive size. There was no living with them, and they were greatly feared. Can you imagine the explorers and settlers of this country walking through the wilder places and coming face to face with an animal as large as the one in this picture?
The brown bears reach huge sizes, primarily because they live in areas in Alaska, Russia, and Canada, where they can eat a lot of salmon and other fat-rich fish. Grizzlies usually do not grow this large.
Some people would like for our wild areas to once again have the animals that once lived there. Today, small populations of grizzlies have been brought back from extinction in our northwestern states due to protections that have been placed on them. Designating grizzlies as threatened or endangered in the Bitterroot Range and other places has caused major concern with ranchers and farmers who lose livestock to the bears, and with residents needing to live in a safe place. The federal government may pay the cost of the livestock that is lost when it has been determined that it was a bear that killed the animals.
The truly wild areas of British Columbia, Canada, Alaska, and Russia, are prime brown bear habitats - they grow big bears there. Any place that has streams or rivers with salmon spawning will have unusually large and fat brown bears. Those places are usually out in wilderness areas where people do not live.
Recently, Russia has opened their brown bear territory to international hunters. Kamchatka is an area in Russia where brown bears live. It is an area full of salmon-filled streams and fields of berries for brown bears and other animals. Trophy hunting in Russia is big business like in other places - here, bear hunting may not be only to trim the population of bears, it may be just a good cost center for the economy. Russia contains Eurasian Brown Bears, Siberian Brown Bears, and also Far Eastern Brown Bears in Kamchatka Peninsula and the Pacific Coast - these bears rival and exceed the size of the Kodiak Bears in Alaska because they are eating so much salmon.
Note: CoveBear does not offer an opinion about bear hunting, only the facts as we know them to be. Hunting has long been used as a population management tool with other animals such as deer, elk, moose, etc., when it has been determined that the carrying capacity of an area cannot hold any more of a growing population. Concerns about hunting should be directed to your state department of natural resources, not this website.
TO HUNT OR NOT TO HUNT
Determining what to do about growing populations of bears can take years. Many people and groups may participate in the formulation of an effective management plan, and the plan can encompass ideas to be implemented over a period of a couple of years up to twenty years. Good bear management plans can take a long time to formulate. Residents of that state are invited to comment and make suggestions. Agencies also ask citizens for input on how to handle nuisance bears. Bear management plans will include whether the bear population needs to be held at a certain number, and what percentage of bears should be eliminated in order to maintain the population at that amount. It all gets back to habitat carrying capacity and social carrying capacity, previously discussed.
Please see other sections on this website for other types of information regarding brown bears.
Click here to go to Black Bear #1 DVD Click here to go to Black Bear #2 DVD
KMG is not responsible for errors in information, but accuracy is our goal.
www.CoveBear.com Our Text, Photos and Products © KMG 1992-2011 Our Website Content and Design © KMG 2001-2011 All Rights Reserved by Kate Marshall Graphics, Inc.
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