. NEWS FLASH!! Tahoe Basin and popular Galena and Mt. Rose hiking trails excluded from 2014 bear hunt. We fought and won this concession one more year, but failed to get the season reduced despite winning the Bear Committees recommendation for doing so. Here are NoBearHuntNV representative Cathy Pruitt Smiths comments to Wildlife Commission at todays meeting in Las Vegas. Thank you, Cathy! I understand we have to discuss season setting despite the 3 year review of the bear hunt is still underway. I am anxiously awaiting the broader picture of the 3 year review, including the psychosocial aspects. I hope it is well understood that the recommendations may change again, once the review is complete, and strongly appreciate the committee recommendation of the season change. Our bears are stressed do to the arid conditions. We allow hounds to further stress the bears by robbing them of needed calories during this sensitive period. It has been confirmed that hounds also put stress on non-target animals, including deer in some studies. Now some have recommended night hunting to accommodate lion hunters who break the law. We would be the only state to allow bear hunting at night. Chris Healy was quoted earlier this year as saying, the drought has diminished the bears natural food supply of nuts and berries. The bears are staying awake because they havent eaten enough to sustain their hibernation. There is data on brown and polar bears demonstrating increased cub mortality, decreased reproduction, and decreased fitness with physiological stress. I am happy to hear the department and Commissioner McNinch are concerned about stressing other big game animals when, and I quote, their energy reserves are low. How and why are the bears different? Where is the data to support it, beyond to small hounding studies involving less than 20 bears? Why are ungulates favored so strongly over our bears? Unfortunately, the limited data we get from our bear hunt does not meet statistical significance. So, denning behavior, den disturbance, etc is almost meaningless as scientific information. There are many studies confirming occurrences of den abandonment when dogs and/ or people come within 1km of their dens. As far as seeing more bears hit by cars, I would love for the department to comment on how bear home ranges change in times of drought searching for food. I found it interesting that one of the themes of the recent wildlife society meeting was citizen science. They discussed the need to broaden the base of wildlife management to increase interest out of necessity. There is human dimension research from multiple other states that confirm bear hunting in general is thought of differently than ungulate hunting. Previous studies have demonstrated around 80% approval of ungulate hunting. However, a 2002 study in Utah that was published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin revealed that there is little public support for bear hunting. Only slightly more than half of hunters approve of black bear hunting, only 23 percent of anglers approve of it, and only 22 percent of non-consumptive users approve of it. Only 44 percent of hunters approve of using hounds to hunt black bears, only 16 percent of anglers, and only nine percent of non-consumptive users approve. CO recently passed a regulation against disturbing bears in their dens. This regulation was passed to maintain and increase public support for wildlife and wildlife management by emphasizing safety and fair chase. I hope that this commission takes public support into account when they make future decisions with respect to the bear hunt.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 01:25:13 +0000
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