June 9, 2023

Maine Moose History and Shucking Bears

A couple of issues jumped out at me that I found reading two articles published in Maine newspapers recently. The first had to do with an article in the Bangor Daily News about the history of Maine’s moose and their moose hunt.

The article presents a timeline of events that began with how unregulated moose killing led to the end of all moose hunting, ending with the present day limited moose hunt lottery. The article, as written, states: 1980: Changes in forest practices, including clear-cutting, have provided moose with more habitat and food sources, and the herd shows signs of consistent growth.”

This is actually a partially inaccurate statement. Yes, there were changes in forest practices that have been ongoing, but everyone knows that it was the event of the outbreak of the spruce budworm and the resulting clear-cutting in efforts to salvage as much timber as possible that provided millions of acres of prime moose habitat. There was so much habitat as a result that Maine grew an artificially high population of moose. (Note: This same event and resulting clear-cuts, also provided false growths in rabbits, the prime food source for Canada lynx. And yes, the clear-cuts caused a false growth in Canada lynx and as these clear-cuts change, we are still attempting to artificially grow the number of Canada lynx.)

Two things have been happening since. First, because of man’s greed and ignorance, we attempted, and still are, to sustain a moose population approaching 100,000 animals. Mother Nature responded by knocking that population down with winter ticks providing an unnecessary and tormenting way to die for moose – wasted meat that would have provided some Maine families with nutritious food. Second, it’s been nearly 50 years since the spruce budworm and much of that prime habitat has changed.

In short, Maine’s generous uptick in moose numbers was an accident and not simply due to man’s efforts at management.

The second issue I found was in George Smith’s article about not needing to be scared of bears. George tells stories of some of his and his families’ dealings with black bears, and in one case of how he gathered up the family to run down to the shore of the lake to be there when a mother bear and two of her cubs came swimming across the lake.

George’s stories are presented as cute, fun, exciting, and never a serious word of caution. All the stories and accounts the author tells are probably true, but, what of that one time when a person, or family, due to “cute, fun, and exciting,” find themselves in a position where the mother bear will do whatever it feels is necessary to protect her cubs? Then what? Oh, yeah, yell.

Even domestic animals can be unpredictable but this is seldom, if ever, taught to our children. The family dog or the neighbor’s cat are always seen by people, children in particular because of how they are taught, as always approachable, never looking for signs that might indicate to stay away or having been taught that because they are animals they are unpredictable.

This incorrect teaching and attitude that animals are nothing but cute, fun, and exciting, it what causes those “rare” occasions when animal attacks person.

Perhaps instead of saying that there is no need to be scared of bears, we should be a bit more honest with ourselves and those around us and say that we don’t need to be scared but because it is an animal, and a potentially vicious predator, we need to be respectfully cautious, assuming that we might be treading where the bear, or other animal, may not want us to be.

Maybe then, those “rare” instances will become even rarer.

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Too Many Bears, Too Little Effort, Too Much Fear

Rome may be burning to the ground and those charged with the authority to stop it dither and doddle. Maine is swimming in bears and even though the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) expresses their “concerns” over a bear population that needs to be reduced, one effort that would have given the commission of the MDIFW authority to make adjustments to bear hunting, trapping seasons, and bag limits, was set aside until next year’s legislative session. I wonder if these clowns on the left and clowns on the right will feel any guilt when someone gets killed by a hungry bear?

Not likely, you might say. And last evening I glimpsed a video someone took while riding up the chair lift at Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, Maine. On the ski trail that ran under their lift, a mother bear and her two cubs meandered about the packed trail, I suppose fresh out of hibernation and looking for a quick meal. Anyone interested in testing that hypothesis? I didn’t think so.

Perhaps it’s time for education courses on how to “Look Big” in case you are attacked by a hungry bear. And now we must add to that instruction now to “Look Big” while schussing down the ski trails. What next?

According to George Smith, Maine outdoor writer, discussion on the proposed bill that would have given the commissioner authority to manipulate seasons and bag limits, was lengthy but ended in tabling any decisions until next year.

MDIFW’s new commissioner said, “…the agency is concerned about the growing population of bears, and their goal would be to stabilize that population.” We can only assume that means it’s time to do something besides talk about it…or maybe not. If there is “concern” does that mean the bear population hasn’t risen to levels that threaten public safety…like bears running around the middle of a ski resort?

And here’s the chicken, environmentalist answer to the problem when Maine Rep. John Martin said, “…if the committee gave the department this authority, including the possibility that bear trapping would be expanded, it would provoke another ballot measure to ban bear trapping.”

With comments such as this one, I have to ask myself a few questions and I hope you do too. I want to know if members of the Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife are there to do the bidding for the environmentalists and their cohort animal rights activists? I also want to know if there is more value put on the threatening of lawsuits than on the welfare of a human life? There is no intelligent thought that remains anymore.

By now any politician, voter, or commissioner of the MDIFW should know and understand that because they exist is reason enough for radical animal rights groups and environmentalists to bring a lawsuit in order to force the rest of us to cave in and follow their perverse lifestyle. Here we see members of the Committee giving them what they want and it’s cheaper than a lawsuit or another referendum vote. It is for reasons of comments such as this one that the MDIFW has resorted to making wildlife management decisions based on social demands…which include the threat of lawsuits.

In the meantime, what are we to tell the families of those who get injured or killed from marauding bears, driven by hunger and emboldened by loss of fear of humans? Sorry, but we were afraid of a lawsuit from environmentalists. It’s not my fault.

Now the Maine Legislature must concern themselves with lawsuits from families of injured and dead members due to malpractice and negligence. I suppose that’s better than pissing off an environmentalist who wants to stop the world from doing most things the rest of us enjoy doing. It’s no wonder interest in hunting, fishing, and trapping is dwindling away to nothing.

Maybe it’s time that these mostly useless politicians made decisions based on science (not scientism), or social demands and threats of lawsuits, and did what was RIGHT for a change. And while they are at it, how about making those RIGHT decisions based upon something other than the demands of guides and outfitters.

There is little hope.

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Should Maine’s Newly Elected Governor Put Black Bear Management in Hands of Planned Parenthood?

I was reading just yesterday a comment left online by a reader about bear hunting practices. The comment, as a plea to newly elected governor, Janet Mills, said something like, no animal has a chance when up against humans and their man-made weapons. They also added that Maine has no laws to protect animals.

Think about that for a moment. The plea is for protection of animals, so that no animal can be killed by humans for any reason…it appears. If the plea goes out to Governor Janet Mills, perhaps Gov. Mills might consider placing the management and protection of black bears in the hands of Planned Parenthood…or maybe not.

Planned Parenthood gave Janet Mills a 100% rating for her support of abortion of human infants. What does this tell us? Many things I would suppose. The first being that she might just value the lives of bears over those of humans. Of course the argument would be that an unborn child is not a living being and thus I am comparing apples with oranges.

If that is the case, then perhaps Maine should consider taking up the practice of aborting unborn bear fetuses while in hibernation. After all, if human fetuses and not human lifeforms, certainly bear fetuses are not bear lifeforms. Maine has an extensive bear study and management program where bear dens are visited on a regular basis. Before any bear cubs are born, biologists could drag the female bear from the den and kill her unborn cubs. Surely that would reduce the bear population. We can’t have more and more bears living on the landscape that are becoming a burden on society and taking away other bear’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of junk food.

There is something seriously wrong with a society that would advocate for more laws to protect animals but at the same time support the evil practice of murdering unborn babies. Maine’s new governor supports that practice. By comparison, those who support abortion “rights” also support animal rights.

SICK!

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Bursting the Bubble of “Normal” Bear Behavior

If anyone might be interested to return to my seemingly endless commentary on bear behavior and bear attacks, they would discover that I’m a broken record when it comes to the sickening echo chamber of “bears don’t ‘normally’ act that way” and “bears don’t ‘normally’ attack people for no reason.” etc. And of course the most childish of all lame comments, “Bears are more afraid of you than you are of them.”

It never ends. When children don’t act the way we WANT them to, or what the indoctrination institutions and doctors consider “normal” behavior, we feed them chemicals to alter that behavior to make them “normal.”

“Normal” is a subjective issue that we have willingly given over to centralized authority and as such are slaves to their perspective of normal. Whatever doesn’t fit the “normal” mold is left either unexplained or simply passed off as an anomaly regardless of the frequency of not normal (by chosen perspective) behavior.

We can’t harness and drug bears. Instead, we insist on sticking to human-projected behavior patterns, framed around the bio-perverse obsession with protecting wild animals (large predators like bears) even at the expense of human life. In short, we want animals to be human-like and therefore project human characteristics onto animals.

A recent attack by two bears in Wyoming on a guide and his client has created a bit of a stir. The Media including Social Media and Internet websites have, once again, revealed to us the very reason we should NEVER believe ANYTHING we read on their platforms. Written accounts of the event have proven over and over to be inaccurate and yet the bad information gets embellished and passed along – and worst believed.

The brain trust – those who know more about everything than anyone else and has an “expert” opinion – have provided all the answers to any question asked and even those that haven’t.

In all of this, once again we are subjected to the vomit of the Media as they try to choke back their regurgitated nonsensical misinformation about bear behavior – and refuse to change.

I read this evening in the Newscentermaine.com website how we will probably never know why these two bears attacked two men attempting to retrieve a dead elk. The entire article is rife with terrible information that is formulated in the manner in which I described at the beginning of this piece.

Based mostly on the perverse need, having been indoctrinated into the minds of most American’s these days, to paint a completely positive aura about bears and other large predators, officials, brainwashed in their strong delusion that “bears don’t normally act this way,” now want to tell us we’ll never know why these bears attacked. Could it be that they attacked because they are BEARS??? Geez!

Here is a laundry list of nonsense repeated in this Online Media article:

“Wyoming wildlife officials say we may never know why a grizzly bear and her cub killed a hunting guide in an unusual and unprovoked attack.”

We are to believe that this attack was “unusual” because it doesn’t nicely and conveniently fit the narrative used to protect large predators. We are also to believe the attack was “unprovoked.” Try to understand how stupid that statement is. Because we refuse to understand that all animal behavior is unpredictable, this attack is called “unprovoked.” Obviously, something provoked the bears to attack, even if they were provoked by the simple fact that they are wild, unpredictable, large animals. Geez!

“We’re very fortunate that bears usually behave like bears should… But there are occasions where bears don’t behave like other bears.”

Once again, we are supposed to believe their inconsistent mantra that bears’ behavior is “normal” and predictable.

“Grizzlies don’t typically attack humans like that…”

Says who? Well, the authorities, that’s who. They don’t want anyone to have any ill feelings toward grizzly bears so they repeatedly tell us bears are afraid of us and are harmless except if you “surprise” them or meddle with cubs. B.S.!!! They even tell us bears are so harmless we can effectively protect ourselves by arming ourselves with bear spray – the same bear spray the guide used and died anyway. And note these same authorities who want you to carry bear spray so you won’t harm bears had to kill the same bear that attacked the guide and hunter with a rifle. Hmmm.

“Attacks are more commonly associated with either a surprise encounter… or if the bears were defending their food.”

None of my comments are intended to tell people this information about bear behavior isn’t true – it is just incomplete and saturated with the human condition foisted onto an animal. Each and every time authorities go out of their way, and the press becomes their echo chamber, to tell us how RARE it is that a bear, a wolf, a fox, a mountain lion, a bobcat – you name the animal – attacks someone, it’s unusual and not “normal” behavior. The truth is they don’t know what’s normal or abnormal behavior. If it fits their determined narrative, then it must be “normal.” Anything outside of that convenient narrative is just “unexplained,” as though it never happens but once in a million years. And yet we are always reading about those “unusual” and not “normal” attacks on people while refusing to change our understanding of wild animal behavior and do and say responsible things like, “______ attacks are considered to be not man-created normal behavior. All animals, wild and domestic can be and are unpredictable. You should always approach every animal in every situation as though just about anything will happen…including one of those ‘unprovoked’ attacks.”

But I’m not holding my breath waiting for them to change what they say.

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Tennesseans Better “Look Big.” Bear Spotted First Time 100 Years

A bear was spotted in Davidson County for the first time in more than 100 years.

The bear was caught on a trail camera in Joelton, not far from Whites Creek Pike. <<<Read More>>>

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Bear’s Menu for Fine Dining

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Campers, hikers warned to keep food safe from bears

After a wild encounter at a New Hampshire campsite, state officials are warning resident and tourists about bear activity.

Signs have been placed at the Lincoln Woods trailhead warning hikers and campers to keep an extra eye out after a bear came a little too close for comfort.

White Mountain National Forest officials said they believe the black bear has been making its way into the Franconia Brook campsite, as well as Black Pond and other areas along the east branch of the Pemigewasset River.

“We’ve heard there’s been a couple of incidents where people set their pack down to go to look at something, and they come back and the bag’s gone,” said Evan Burks of the White Mountain National Forest.<<<Read More>>>

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Bears Don’t “Naturally” Break Into Homes?

The Outdoor Wire files a report about increased incidences of encounters with black bears. According to the report, a game warden in Vermont says that “…bears don’t naturally break into homes. They must first have had experience receiving food from humans. The process of habituation begins with attractants that residents leave out such as birdseed, pet food, or unsecured garbage.”

That makes sense…right? Or maybe not so much. What does it mean to say bears don’t naturally break into homes? Does that mean that it is not a “natural” instinct of survival to go around breaking into homes?

I guess I don’t get it. The report says the “process of habituation” begins when bears are attracted to those things humans do that tells a bear, “Hey, bear! That smells like food and you are hungry!”

I understand that bears are attracted to smells. Is this warden trying to tell us that if a bear smells hot apple pie sitting on the sideboard, he doesn’t know that it is food because he’s never had it before?

Why is it that animal protectionists place so many human qualities on animals and deny other qualities if it doesn’t neatly fit the narrative? Wild animal behavior is quite unpredictable. That’s why we label them as “wild” animals.

I will remind all readers that a bear has a sense of smell that is seven times greater than that of a bloodhound. Under the right conditions, a bloodhound can detect the odor of one cell. That’s right, one cell. A bear can probably smell your dirty laundry.

Whether your smelly good “food source” (for bears) is or isn’t “secured” doesn’t mean a bear can’t smell it if it’s put away. And, whether a bear has “previous training” on what is and what isn’t human food and how to get it, a hungry bear doesn’t give a rat’s behind whether a game warden thinks a bear won’t break into your home unless he’s first had the proper training. To think such is a pretty good indication that you don’t understand how the voracity caused by intense hunger pains will drive any wild animal…well, wild.

We shouldn’t assume anything. If you live in bear country you might have the unpleasant experience of encountering a hungry bear. Look out! A curious bear…maybe not so much of a problem.

Bears “naturally” live in the woods. Bears “naturally” eat when they are hungry. If hunger overpowers fear of humans, with or without the proper training, you might have a midnight visitor come knocking on your door…or it’s just come crashing in without knocking.

It should be only “natural” to be prepared…but we’re not.

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Odd Way of Selling Bear Hunting

It seems that the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) is on a bit of a promotion kick attempting to convince more Mainer’s to take up bear hunting.

Maine has too many bears – or at least anyone with any sense at all realizes that – and not enough hunters to control the growth. Or, it could be that the MDIFW is too tightly controlled by the guides and outfitters who dictate to them when, where, how often, how long and what bag limits will be on black bear. Then again, maybe two seasons for bear would work but you still need hunters.

Several articles have appeared in newspapers of late encouraging people to take up bear hunting with the MDIFW expressing thoughts of how the population of bears keeps growing while the population of bear hunters keeps shrinking.

Perhaps an actual change in attitude and presentation of propaganda at the department might help in that way. MDIFW is pretty quick to relate stories of their great bear management activities, cuddling up with bear cubs during the winter surveys and sharing stories of “named” bears as though they were a member of the neighborhood instead of potential table fare.

Some people (potential bear hunters) would prefer to see statistics from bear harvests to determine whether making the effort to take up bear hunting or come to Maine for a visit and do some bear hunting is worthwhile. To a bear hunter, cute and cuddly bear cubs all snuggly-wuggly into the jacket of a bear biologist isn’t what excites a bear hunter.

So here’s a suggestion. To help generate a bit more interest in bear hunting, MDIFW could at least pretend they give two rat’s patooties about bear hunting and see if they could publish the bear harvest results for the previous bear hunting season before the next one begins. Maybe they could even run a few more bear hunting reports in those same newspapers they like to publish cute bear pictures in.

But now that MDIFW has announced that they are no longer all that concerned about game populations and will focus more on health, counting and producing data is a thing of the past. It’s also a convenient way of ensuring there is no accountability.

Well, here’s a thought. If MDIFW is pretending to be recruiting bear hunters (more precisely they are recruiting revenue to pay the retirement pensions) but at the same time changing their focus to the health of game herds instead of population numbers, then history tells us that soon MDIFW will have their hands full of taking up the chore of dealing with all the diseases that come from overpopulations of any animal.

Health focus they want? Health focus they will get!

BUT DON’T GO LOOK!

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Bear Doing What a Bear Does

There are reports of a 71-year-old wheelchair-bound woman having an “encounter” with a bear in her home. Authorities are “…concerned the bear may have rabies.”

According to repeated “facts” about bears, they don’t bother people, they are more afraid of you than you are of them, all you need to do to “shoo” a bear away is make noise and “look big.”

Never it is stated that a hungry bear will do things like entering a home perhaps because of the smell of food. In this case, the excuse for a bear’s behavior is it is suspected of rabies.

Maybe it was Yogi the Bear and was looking for food for him and Boo Boo.

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