To all Ojai Wildlife League Supporters,
We are getting down to the wire with the California Fish and Game Commission making a decision on April 21, 2010, regarding whether to expand bear hunting, the use of dogs and permit unlimited killing of bears. If you haven’t written a letter please do so as soon as possible. The email address is fgc@fgc.ca.gov For sample Letters visit www.OjaiwildlifeLeague.com.
Expanded bear hunts don’t pass smell test
By Wayne Pacelle, president, Humane Society of the United States.
For too long, the California Department of Fish and Game has served the interests of the trophy-hunting lobby over the interests of the millions of California residents who do not hunt. Wildlife watchers in California outnumber bear hunters by a factor of 250 to 1. But nothing demonstrates just how far the agency will go to placate this narrow trophy-hunting constituency than new proposals to expand the range and the terms for killing black bears with packs of dogs in California.

With these steps, the department is walking straight into an expensive and needless wrangle with voters — because rank-and-file citizens cannot, and will not, condone this kind of unsporting and inhumane mismanagement and may be left with no choice but another ballot initiative to bring the government to its senses.
Californians may remember that in the 1980s the department pressed to authorize a trophy hunting season for mountain lions, despite objections from the public. Wildlife protection and humane organizations eventually initiated a ballot measure, which voters approved in 1990 and then affirmed again in 1996. Unfortunately, this lesson appears lost on today’s department regulators.
The department is calling for a significant expansion of the range open to hound hunting of bears, including starting a season in San Luis Obispo County, no doubt to give trophy hunters from Los Angeles and the Bay Area a convenient hunting ground. Farther north, the department wants to expand the bear hunting range in Modoc and Lassen counties. This is heavily forested country and prime bear habitat. The adoption of this proposal surely will mean more harassed and dead bears.
That’s to the liking of the trophy-hunting lobby, of course, and the department is bending over backward to be accommodating. DFG proposes to rescind a regulation that automatically ends the season once 1,700 bears have been killed. For the last three years, hunters have met this quota early and the season was curtailed. Now, under this abrogation of responsibility, trophy hunters can take aim on an unlimited number of bears — a shocking step backward.
But it gets even worse. Much worse. The department also proposes expanding the hound-hunting season across much of the state. It already is legal in California to chase bears with packs of radio-collared hounds, despite the fact that bears have less stamina than dogs and must soon seek refuge in a tree. DFG now wants to permit this activity all season long, beginning just as soon as bears emerge from their dens with dependent cubs. This would separate mothers from their cubs — and even make tiny bears targets.
Hound hunters typically use radio telemetry devices, the same devices bear researchers and national park employees use to track bears.
But the department wants to allow even more sophisticated technology to ease the trophy hunters’ path. Under the DFG plan, high-tech hunters could use Global Positioning System transmitters on their dogs’ collars, complete with “tip switches.”
That way, dogs are released to chase bears and trophy hunters can climb back into their heated trucks to drink coffee while they track the “hunt” on a portable GPS receiver. When dogs tree a bear, they stop looking down at the ground — bear hounds track by scent — and raise their heads to look up into the tree. If they look up for a long period of time, a “tip switch” on the collar alerts the shooters that the chase is over.
The trophy hunters grab their rifles, follow the GPS signal straight to the bear, and shoot the trapped animal at point-blank range off a tree branch. It’s about as sporting as following a printed zoo map to the bear grotto.
These proposals didn’t bubble up from California communities dealing with increased conflicts with bears — not that such conflicts are resolved by expanding hunting. Rather, this reckless war on the state’s natural resources was proposed by trophy hunters who want to shoot more black bears and mount their hides and heads on their walls.
California’s bears are an icon for our state. They are a natural treasure we all enjoy and appreciate, and they need and deserve protection, particularly in light of poaching pressures from those professional rings that sell bear parts abroad. It’s outrageous enough that California allows any hounding of black bears, but bears have only “dodged the bullet” and avoided eradication in California because regulations have maintained an annual quota.
The leadership of the trophy hunting lobby again shows its colors in demanding no interference — and short-sighted regulators have obliged by not even bothering to conduct research on local bear populations in the areas of the proposed expansion to determine what impact an unlimited trophy hunt might have on the health and stability of the bear populations in the effective areas.
Most responsible hunters profess an ethic of sportsmanship and fair chase, and the use of high-tech devices to shoot unlimited numbers of bears doesn’t meet the smell test.
Voters in Colorado, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington have taken to the polls already to protect bears against hound hunting. Voters in California have already displayed their desire to put majestic wildlife ahead of the misguided and selfish interests of an overreaching trophy hunting lobby.
The mission of the Department of Fish and Game includes managing our diverse wildlife and their habitats for “their use and enjoyment by the public.” It’s time they stand up for wildlife and for the entire “public,” not just trophy hunters.
Notes:
Wayne Pacelle is president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. Members of their staff were part of the team that helped with the research and documentation in the preparation of comments that were submitted to the California Department of Fish & Game last week.
Submited by Sue Williamson
www.Ojaiwildlifeleague.com
Phone: 805-640-0187
Email: sue@ojaiwildlifeleague.com
Received from the California/Nevada Regional Conservation Committee
BLACK BEAR TASK FORCE
Richard J. Garcia – Chair
Credit:
Opinion by Wayne Pacelle previously published in the Santa Barbara News-Press, March 14, 2010.
Related Ojai Post articles:
Opinion: TOO HARD TO BEAR: Why does the Department of Fish and Game want to expand bear hunting?
Letter by Julia J. Di Sieno, executive director of Animal Rescue Team Inc.
http://www.ojaipost.com/2010/03/opinion_too_hard_to_bear_why_d.shtml
Letter from Marjorie Emerson, Ojai, to Fish & Game re Plan to Expand Bear Hunting
http://www.ojaipost.com/2010/02/letter_from_marjorie_emerson_o_1.shtml