Grizzly mauls two kills one

[Tom]

First of all everyone you are talking about probably thinks you are talking about someone else.

Second of all, I don't know how you intended your tone to sound, but it sounds very high and mighty. What is it that makes you feel so superior to everyone involved in this discussion? I don't think YOUR post was very becoming of a "Gentleman".

Lastly, There is nothing wrong with a healthy debate and each side promoting and defending their point of view. I want to hear what the "other side" has to say. I believe the other side, in this case, to be rational, likable, intelligent people and I am interested in why they feel the way they do, when I see it so differently. Without the back and forth, nobody understands where anybody is coming from.

 

[chadk]

As for the idea that we could all be vegans... That is a lot of beans and rice. How much land, water, fertalizer, etc is it going to take to provide all that extra vegan food??? And then get it to all those around the world who don't have access beceause they live in deserts, the north pole, etc?? Certainly not sustainable.

And the signs were probably put up after the bear attack, and they quickly closed it down, as you'd expect. Do you have a reason to think they were already up? In an area that had no bear attacks in quite a long time?

Also, just to be clear, Grizzly Bears are not "Endangered".

Camping in the woods is a perfectly fine way to spend some time. 99.99 percent of the time nothing bad happens. With the logic some of you seem to have, we should not live in cities. There are cities were the death toll each day is quite high - from auto accidents, murders, and so on... We maybe nobody should live there? Come to think of it, if more of them took up a nice hobby like camping and hiking, they'd have less time to kill eachother...

 

[RichardS]

When I read some of these posts, I see people who have great compassion for other living things. I don't see anything ridiculous about this at all.

But all that compassion comes at the cost of human lives. I love animals too, in fact, the one thing everyone on the forum has is that we all love animals. The difference is a rational person can see the differences between a human life and an animal's. Its not rude to call an action or opinion irrational. I'm sure OP or whomever are a nice people, but it doesn't negate the irrationality of the opinion. Forgetting anyone's personal beliefs about the bible or evolution, there are many distinct differences between people and animals. A human life will always be more valuable than an animals. Thus, protecting human lives, will always be a priority over protecting animal lives.

The best examples I can give are some tribes people in Peru. They have no ego. Give them 5 shotgun shells, they will kill 5 jaguars to eliminate any potential danger to their children. Sad for the jaguars. Its easy to judge those people from our living rooms, sitting on our laptops. There are a lot fewer jaguars than people, right? But if your family lived in a hut, and you took walks at night and got stalked, I guess it would be a different story. That's a reality for people. They don't have the choice whether to "camp" or not. What we call camping, is their every day living.

Over the past 30 years, we (western society) have really elevated animals to protect them. This is a good thing. When I was a little kid, I used to get sad thinking about all the African wildlife killed in Rome. The concept of sustainability did not exist. Fast forward 2,000 years and we have wildlife parks where people pay to go on safari to take photos, not shoot lions.

Killing animals unnecessarily is wrong. In children, its used to diagnosis serious sociopathic behavior. But, sometimes killing animals is the right thing to do, like in the case of the original article. Its is what it is. If the article had said, they slaughtered the first 15 bears they found (which may have been normal 50 years ago), then we could debate if that was right or wrong.

I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. But, it really does boggle my mind that there are people walking the streets who can't see the difference (ethically, morally, biologically, "biblically", visually, etc.) between humans and animals. If our descendants had not been able to make that differentiation, none of us would even be here to have this conversation!

Cheers

 

[terryo]

Chad, I don't think there's anything wrong with camping. When my kids were small we practically lived in the woods, and when I was a kid my Dad took us camping all the time. If that sign wasn't up there before the accident, then sure, there wasn't any reason why they shouldn't have been there, but we don't know that for sure. If the sign was there, then it's a different story. That was a horrible thing that happened to them. I'm saying that if the sign was there they should have been more responsible, and went someplace else, and then this wouldn't have happened. There has to be some place where these animals can be free to roam and live in peace without us trespassing on their lives.

 

[Itort]

Well said Richard and the sign in the photo everyone is refering to wasn't there on the night of the attacks. If I remember correctly there was a sign warning of potential bear danger (basically telling people to take proper precations) which is not unusual in bear country (both black and grizzly). The only thing these people did was camp in the range of an unusually aggresive bear.

 

[MATortoise B]

Ok, so everybody has their own opinion about this, we established that. Now think of this as if you were the bear. You are on your land, and you feel threatened, So you attack to PROTECT YOUR YOUNG, you end up killing whatever was threatening you. Sounds somewhat reasonable as everybody has said. But now your are killed for doing that. Because of that, you are now killed, and your kids will die because they CAN"T feed themselves yet. Yes its sad for all the deaths but when you go into the wild you are putting yourself in danger of whatever. That may be a bear, spider, snake, whatever it may be.

 

[johnnyg50]

First of all gm Grizzly, I mean Tortoise, forum!

Two links to put the sign debate to bed. Both captions read the closure was on 07-29-10. The attacks occurred on 07-28-10. The first shows the ACTUAL Ranger Rick closing the gate personally

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/image_52b9faf0-9b3b-11df-85f1-001cc4c03286.html

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/image_5ce6ca8a-9b3b-11df-aec8-001cc4c03286.html

As I stated in my earlier post, this kind of unprovoked attack is very rare. According to every article I read, the people in this campground were doing everything correctly and did nothing to provoke this attack. While I agree that there is an inherent danger to tent camping in bear country, I believe our authorities have a duty to protect the public from a bear who is seeking out human beings as a food source. Chris Servheen, the grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, and is the person who is responsible for coordinating all research and management on grizzly bears in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington State, said the mother bear had to be killed because her behavior revealed predation. I don't know about any of you, but I am not a Grizzly bear expert. Since this guys seems like one, he might know what he's talking about.

An analogy was made that if we go into the ocean we should expect we may get eaten by something in there. I agree that is another inherent danger of swimming or SCUBA diving in the ocean. The difference is that JAWS doesn't sneak aboard boats in the middle of the night and eat people while they're sleeping. If he did I would expect the Coast Guard to hunt him down.

As far as the comment regarding us (humans) invading Grizzly territory. Yellowstone was America's FIRST National Park, founded in 1872. The area the attacks occurred was a CAMPGROUND just outside the park. Not some construction area displacing the areas animal inhabitants. So should we not camp or visit any areas where bears live in fear that we might get attacked which might cause the death of a bear? It would be pretty difficult to find a mountain campground in the western US that doesn't have some type of bear population. Furthermore, Grizzlies were once hunted nearly to extinction by selfish humans. However, other humans (presumably not so selfish) decided to protect these bears. As a result, Grizzlies have made a tremendous comeback. While the Yellowstone Grizzly population has been well documented, this comeback has actually caused Grizzlies to INVADE human territories in other parts of Wyoming. Thus, there is an ongoing effort to relocate those bears to other areas. Believe me, there is a tremendous effort being undertaken to protect Grizzly bears.
The following link is Wyoming's 2009 Grizzly Management report if anyone is interested:
http://gf.state.wy.us/downloads/pdf/2009 Relocation Report.pdf

I agree that debate is healthy and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, I also believe in conducting research before making statements regarding "perceived" facts (i.e. the sign dilemma).

 

[chadk]

Ok, so everybody has their own opinion about this, we established that. Now think of this as if you were the bear. You are on your land, and you feel threatened, So you attack to PROTECT YOUR YOUNG, you end up killing whatever was threatening you. Sounds somewhat reasonable as everybody has said. But now your are killed for doing that. Because of that, you are now killed, and your kids will die because they CAN"T feed themselves yet. Yes its sad for all the deaths but when you go into the wild you are putting yourself in danger of whatever. That may be a bear, spider, snake, whatever it may be.

So now you know how a bear thinks?

Besides, they were SLEEPING in a tent, not out provoking the bears....

I just hope the bear meat did not go to waste. That would be a shame. At least a food bank or something could put the bear meat to use - that is a lot of sausage!

 

[Isa]

I wanted to say something but forget it!

 

[DeanS]

My beef (and I love beef) is that until 1975 The Grizzly was the California state animal...ridiculous, since they were eradicated in the state by the end of the 19th century. Then, the California Gray Whale took its place. WHAT?!?!? They don't live in California! They make a GREAT menu item for Orcas whenever they migrate from the Arctic to Mexican waters (or vise versa). So their corpses may reside at the bottom of California waters, but that's it. But I digress! Public outcry overcame and the Grizzly is once again the state animal...almost as ridiculous.

I don't like that most people expect wild animals (especially predators) to live by human rules...if this is the case, then animals need to be conditioned...by professional trainers...not a d******* warden with a rifle. Also, if these animals are not endangered, then track the females and implant a birth control device...it's done in zoos...it can be done in the wild.

 

[johnnyg50]

This is a healthy debate Isa. Everyone on here is being respectful. I was just merely pointing out that you were making a judgment based on something that was not a fact. No need to get mad. What is it that you have to say?

 

[Isa]

This is a healthy debate Isa. Everyone on here is being respectful. I was just merely pointing out that you were making a judgment based on something that was not a fact. No need to get mad. What is it that you have to say?

What I had to say had nothing to do with you or your post. I just posted something and changed my mind about saying it out loud. Sometimes, in this kind of debate, it is better to stay out of it.

 

[RichardS]

Now think of this as if you were the bear. You are on your land, and you feel threatened, So you attack to PROTECT YOUR YOUNG, you end up killing whatever was threatening you. Sounds somewhat reasonable as everybody has said. But now your are killed for doing that. Because of that, you are now killed, and your kids will die because they CAN"T feed themselves yet. Yes its sad for all the deaths but when you go into the wild you are putting yourself in danger of whatever. That may be a bear, spider, snake, whatever it may be.

I see what you're saying, but we also have the power to kill anyone in our (human) territory. If it wasn't for human discretion, we could have slaughtered all bears, tigers, lions, crocodiles, etc. a long time ago. In fact, there are a few major predators that didn't make it through the 20th century. Simple rationality would have told us to eliminate all these predators centuries ago, yet some how the compassion we have, which makes us distinctly human, allowed those super predators to continue to exist.

As a consequence, once in a while, accidents like this happen. The outcome is terrible for all parties. Maybe we're kidding ourselves, but we can tolerate animals that have the potential to kill humans, that is, until they do.

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I don't like that most people expect wild animals (especially predators) to live by human rules...if this is the case, then animals need to be conditioned...by professional trainers...not a d******** warden with a rifle.

Do you think the park ranger was dying to go shoot the bear? I'm sure he was really upset. People don't go into that profession because they like to kill bears. No more than a veterinarian goes into the profession because they like to put down dogs and cats.

People do the best they can with the resources available. If you want to make a large monetary donation to train all the man eating wild bears and administer birth control, more power to you. I would guess about $25,000,000 would be the magic number.

 

[Yourlocalpoet]

This simply isn't true, animals are not essential for providing food for humans, humans could survive easily without eating animals.

False. Maybe some rich vegans in California. Tell the tribes I've seen in Africa or South America that they can grow soy beans instead of fishing.
Chimpanzees hunt and eat meat. Lets teach them to farm beans too. We've given them enough slack for all these years. Its time for them to get into the 21st century. Heck, they were in space before people! PC, emo chimps, here we come!

Well unfortunately I don't know any rich Californian vegans, and well I guess we'll see what happens in Africa when all the illegal fishing wipes out all of their fish stocks.

Animals should be treated well, but they are essential in providing food (to eachother and to humans).

This simply isn't true, animals are not essential for providing food for humans, humans could survive easily without eating animals.

I don't want to just survive. I want to LIVE.

And that's fair enough Tom, nowhere did I suggest this is how we should live, I simply said that animals are not essential for providing food for humans, because they're not.

I agree with dmmj, scary. And yes to God there is a difference, humans were made in Gods image not animals.

Actually this is scary for me! I don't think theology has any relevance here, at all.

How is the OP's or my view of God scary to you? It is very relevant to at least a few of the people posting here. Their world view is behind their reasons for thinking the way they do and its nice to know where people are coming from. This isn't a scientific subject as much as an ethical one. I for one believe God put us in charge of managing the Earth. This entails eliminating animals that are violent towards humans so as to limit future harm. We should also be careful to not place these animals into bad situations that cause them to become agressive if we can avoid it. But, humans trump animals.

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I find it scary because to me it's illogical. Candy suggested that a human life is just the same as the life of an animal, which I don't think is 'scary' as Missy suggested, I think that's very compassionate of her, I don't believe any life is sacred, because I don't believe we were created by some divine deity. If God created everything and gave humans dominion (which as you say includes eliminating animals that are violent towards humans) why didn't he just create animals that are nice and not violent towards us? Then we wouldn't be having this debate.

 

[terryo]

When I read some of these posts, I see people who have great compassion for other living things. I don't see anything ridiculous about this at all.

But all that compassion comes at the cost of human lives. I love animals too, in fact, the one thing everyone on the forum has is that we all love animals. The difference is a rational person can see the differences between a human life and an animal's. Its not rude to call an action or opinion irrational. I'm sure OP or whomever are a nice people, but it doesn't negate the irrationality of the opinion. Forgetting anyone's personal beliefs about the bible or evolution, there are many distinct differences between people and animals. A human life will always be more valuable than an animals. Thus, protecting human lives, will always be a priority over protecting animal lives.

The best examples I can give are some tribes people in Peru. They have no ego. Give them 5 shotgun shells, they will kill 5 jaguars to eliminate any potential danger to their children. Sad for the jaguars. Its easy to judge those people from our living rooms, sitting on our laptops. There are a lot fewer jaguars than people, right? But if your family lived in a hut, and you took walks at night and got stalked, I guess it would be a different story. That's a reality for people. They don't have the choice whether to "camp" or not. What we call camping, is their every day living.

Over the past 30 years, we (western society) have really elevated animals to protect them. This is a good thing. When I was a little kid, I used to get sad thinking about all the African wildlife killed in Rome. The concept of sustainability did not exist. Fast forward 2,000 years and we have wildlife parks where people pay to go on safari to take photos, not shoot lions.

Killing animals unnecessarily is wrong. In children, its used to diagnosis serious sociopathic behavior. But, sometimes killing animals is the right thing to do, like in the case of the original article. Its is what it is. If the article had said, they slaughtered the first 15 bears they found (which may have been normal 50 years ago), then we could debate if that was right or wrong.

I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. But, it really does boggle my mind that there are people walking the streets who can't see the difference (ethically, morally, biologically, "biblically", visually, etc.) between humans and animals. If our descendants had not been able to make that differentiation, none of us would even be here to have this conversation!

Cheers

A VERY SAD FACT, IMO, but a great post and very respectfully well put.

 

[Ickisrulz]

This simply isn't true, animals are not essential for providing food for humans, humans could survive easily without eating animals.

False. Maybe some rich vegans in California. Tell the tribes I've seen in Africa or South America that they can grow soy beans instead of fishing.
Chimpanzees hunt and eat meat. Lets teach them to farm beans too. We've given them enough slack for all these years. Its time for them to get into the 21st century. Heck, they were in space before people! PC, emo chimps, here we come!

Well unfortunately I don't know any rich Californian vegans, and well I guess we'll see what happens in Africa when all the illegal fishing wipes out all of their fish stocks.

Animals should be treated well, but they are essential in providing food (to eachother and to humans).

This simply isn't true, animals are not essential for providing food for humans, humans could survive easily without eating animals.

I don't want to just survive. I want to LIVE.

And that's fair enough Tom, nowhere did I suggest this is how we should live, I simply said that animals are not essential for providing food for humans, because they're not.

I agree with dmmj, scary. And yes to God there is a difference, humans were made in Gods image not animals.

Actually this is scary for me! I don't think theology has any relevance here, at all.

How is the OP's or my view of God scary to you? It is very relevant to at least a few of the people posting here. Their world view is behind their reasons for thinking the way they do and its nice to know where people are coming from. This isn't a scientific subject as much as an ethical one. I for one believe God put us in charge of managing the Earth. This entails eliminating animals that are violent towards humans so as to limit future harm. We should also be careful to not place these animals into bad situations that cause them to become agressive if we can avoid it. But, humans trump animals.

---

---

I find it scary because to me it's illogical. Candy suggested that a human life is just the same as the life of an animal, which I don't think is 'scary' as Missy suggested, I think that's very compassionate of her, I don't believe any life is sacred, because I don't believe we were created by some divine deity. If God created everything and gave humans dominion (which as you say includes eliminating animals that are violent towards humans) why didn't he just create animals that are nice and not violent towards us? Then we wouldn't be having this debate.

---

If this is a question that you really want answered, I'd do my best if you want to PM me. My answer of course would be based on my beliefs as a Christian who believes in a good God as shown in the Bible. I think to provide an answer in this thread would really be off topic.

 

[dmmj]

People who equate human with animal lives being equal truly truly scare me, because then when human life becomes equal ohuman it is no longer worth much.

 

[ChiKat]

As for the idea that we could all be vegans... That is a lot of beans and rice. How much land, water, fertalizer, etc is it going to take to provide all that extra vegan food??? And then get it to all those around the world who don't have access beceause they live in deserts, the north pole, etc?? Certainly not sustainable.

"Globally, we feed 756 million tons of grain to farmed animals. As Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer notes in his new book, if we fed that grain to the 1.4 billion people who are living in abject poverty, each of them would be provided more than half a ton of grain, or about 3 pounds of grain/day -- that's twice the grain they would need to survive. And that doesn't even include the 225 million tons of soy that are produced every year, almost all of which is fed to farmed animals. He writes, "The world is not running out of food. The problem is that we -- the relatively affluent -- have found a way to consume four or five times as much food as would be possible, if we were to eat the crops we grow directly."

http://www.alternet.org/water/134650/the_startling_effects_of_going_vegetarian_for_just_one_day/

/end hijack

 

[chadk]

People need more than grain...

 

[dmmj]

Could I live on a vegan diet? yes I could, would I want to? no I don't think so.