B.C. defends reduced grizzly hunt. B.C. has extended its protected areas but will still allow a limited-entry hunt. By Tom Fletcher – BC Local News.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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I keep hoping that as there’s more protected land we’ll start seeing these large carnivores recolonize historic ranges. We’re starting to see it with wolves–they’ve begun to spread from Wyoming south and west, and possibly back into northern New England from B.C. Cougar have begun to move eastward again, and possibly south from Canada. Will we ever see it with the grizzlies?
Here’s hoping we’ll see grizzlies expand.
If Wyoming doesn’t aggressively control grizzlies in the Wyoming and Salt River ranges it is possible for them to migrate to Utah via the Uinta’s and Norther Wasatch Range. I wish bears in the GYE and the Glacier/Bob area would be dropped off in the Frank Church Wilderness of Central Idaho.
That could be a good thing. I would still like to see if they need reintroduction to the San Juans in Colorado or if there is a remnant population.
I use to live in Durango and while I suppose there could be a few bears hanging on, I’d like to see their numbers supplemented like the Cabinet/Yaak population. It seems like people would be more receptive to bear reintroductions as they are solitary, omnioverous, and slow breeders.
While they are remote, biologist have looked long and hard for grizzlies there for years with no real evidence, so it’s highly unlikely. Not impossible, but improbable. Of course, they went what, a decade, between when they thought they were extinct and the last verified sighting so…
One has to put the puzzle together from different sources and news articles to get the overall picture and the impact this move has. Seems the locals there are really fed up with trophy hunting, over-hunting and poaching (for trophies and for traditional [Chinese] medicine) of their bears. Didn´t we have a similar discussion recently in one of the threads here on this blog? Would be interesting to have an estimate, how many of those 370 legally hunted grizzlys have actually been eaten, with the trophy items being only the “accidental” by-product of the food acquisition.