if ya see a bear, don't call it in

[.270]

this is the stupidest thing i've ever heard. a bear wanders through town in the gila valley. a very common occurence this time o' year. it's almost daily there in the spring and summer. so they call the azgfd and they tranquilize it and take it out and kill it. because it was a male. what kinda stupid assed directive is that? there are quite a few mountains in Az to release a healthy bear on. i don't understand at all why they killed it. Lark.

 

http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2010/05/...b9016867326.txt

[COUESAZ]

That is crap. It does not look like he is tagged or collard at all. So it must have been a first trip to the city for this guy. I think I cut his track along the river. My son and I were atv riding ad saw a set of bear tracks. We wer north of the highway I would say directly north of the spot they put him down with the dart. My inlaws live on church st just before it meets the highway. Any how they should have took him to the top of the mountain and turned him out.

[CouesWhitetail]

+1 on not calling it in. I know AGFD has a tough job to do when it comes to bears and I sympathize with their dilema. And I know most wardens really don't want to be putting bears down. That's exactly why I didn't call AGFD when a bear walked through my back yard a couple years ago. They have tranquilized and killed bears in Globe, and I don't see how that is a good policy. Seems to me there has got to be a better way. I imagine AGFD has come up with a protocol on handling these situations. I wonder if that protocol is available to the public for review? I am curious what they use as criterion.

 

 

[.270]

i was raised in the gila valley. this time of year bear sightings can be an almost daily occurance. literally. i remember one day in pima there were 4 different bears running around town. you see tracks all over the place in the summer. i mean everywhere. you have the gilas and then the nantac rim to the north and the pinalenos to the south. both places are bear factories and bears like to travel around and see the country. they look across the valley and think "that mountian looks cool" and take off. i know i've seen at least a dozen bears within a mile of the city limits of pima and in town. just pima. we'd see em all the time on the farm. see em in town. i saw one early in the morning while i was getting ready to go to work, and i lived on main street next to the grocery store at the time. it's a real common thing. safford and thatcher have all kindsa sightings every year too. the game warden that killed this thing is a jackass and whoever wrote the directive is an even bigger jackass. either haul em off or leave em alone and let em wander off on their own. there is no good reason to just arbitrarily kill a bear because it's a "male". this is bull and the next time i get to talk to a game warden, he's getting an ear full. Lark.

[mkaml4868]

:DI have been in Thatcher for a number of years now, never had anything like this in my yard or even heard about it in town. Usually during drought they may wander in but as for everyday occurances...not my experience at all. This pic was taken from my fence by my neighbor from our yard as he stood by me. This bear had some additional issues other than the one cited for the decision to kill it. I dont know them all but what I watched wasnt a "normal" bear wandering around. I am not an expert but it did not act in a healthy state. I was able to watch it for close to half an hour as it wandered around my two neighbors yards. My kids even got yelled at for coming by me to look at it What a week we have had in the Gila Valley.

[catclaw]

I am not necessarily defending G&F but I think they have a pretty good handle on what they can and can't do with bears. Could be that certain bears have such a high re-offend rate that it isn't practical to turn them loose, only to have them tear something up. Perhaps there is a liability issue to deal with there too. Maybe this bear wasn't healthy.

 

We had over 20 bears come into Mesa one year when it was really dry. Obviously, they are further from home coming into Mesa than Thatcher. Most just disappeared and made it back to the hills, but many were tranked. It is probably pretty expensive to relocate a bear. I suspect if someone wants to form a bear support group that is willing to do the relocation to acceptable sites with volunteer manpower, G&F will be all ears!

 

I don't get worked up over this stuff. They send a couple of guys out, dart a bear, transport him 2 hours away so he isn't close by, tag him, let him go and he is killed by a hunter or car 3 weeks later... it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Females bears are far less apt to wander than a male bear. Probably a pretty good return on their investment to ship them off.

 

 

[IHunt2live]

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article_c1...1cc4c002e0.html

They don't kill every bear that wonders into town. I'm sure there was other issues that lead to the decision to put the bear down.

[cmc]

Predators in town are a liability and safety issue. Repeat offenders are the worst. More strikes against them more chance they'll die of lead poising before being released. Sure it'll make some hunters and bunny huggers mad but in the big picture, liability is of great concern... Least we forget the $2.5 million the state paid out after the 1996 bear mauling of Anna Knochel on Mount Lemmon.

 

Besides... how would you like to be the G&F person standing at the hospital or cemetery apologizing to the family that you thought moving the bear 10 miles away was good enough.

 

Do I think they all need to be shot... heck no. Do I agree with some of their tactics, nope. But I get the sticky situation they are in with bears and lions in town/city limits.

 

cmc

 

 

[catclaw]

AMEN

[TLH]

Stevens said the situation ended without incident and no property damage or injuries to any person or animal were reported.

 

Really?? I am pretty sure the bear was an animal. Come on guys and gals--it was a bear in the city that didn't attack anyone, didn't act aggressive and was young in his adult life. This bear looked perfectly healthy and i doubt he would return if they would have relocated him. I thought the department had a system in place that allowed the bear to make one mistake before he/she was put down--sounds to me like the game and fish took the easy way out on this one.

 

As for the mauling of the little girl Chris--the group up there knew that there were bears in the area--they did not abide by the laws of living in bear country and the little girl got mauled because she probably went to her tent with peanut butter on her lips--the law suit was BS and there was no reason the state should have paid for that--sure i feel bad for the girl but come on we all know if you play in bear country you better play by the rules.

 

Lark, i agree with you on this--this should have never happened. If the game and fish comes back and says the bear had some kind of problem that was causing him to act the way he was then i may be able to figure it out but until then i think it was wrong!

[stanley]

With all due respect to Lark, Amanda, Terry, and others......

 

Armchair quarter-backing is easy IMO. The guys had a decision to make, and they made it. I'm personally not going to second guess the decision because I wasn't there and do NOT know all of the facts.

 

Terry, nit-picking on the wording of 'animal' because they didn't write 'domestic animal' is a bit weak at this point. You knew what they meant, right??? Again, only IMO... (which I absolutely know doesn't mean much.... ) But; 'should have never happended.... '?? Really??? How do you really know what should or should not have happend? You weren't there.

 

S.

[Guest 300ultramag.]

[.270]

i've read that the pinaleno mountains (mt graham) has the densest black bear population per square mile on planet earth. safford, thatcher and pima are literally next to the foothills of the mountain. just a few miles from excellent bear country. to the north you have the gilas, the nantac, the mogollon rim, eagle creek, etc, that are literal bear factories in their own right. bears are nomads that take off and travel just for the heck of it. you're liabel to see one anywhere. younger male bears are as curious as any animal there is. they're gonna travel. if the azgfd is gonna kill every male bear that wanders through town, they best get some guys lined up to artificially insemenate the sows, because they're gonna kill a lotta bears.

 

when was the last time anyone was attacked by a bear in Az? last one i remember was in '78 by point of pines. a campground bear got a guy in his tent. a black bear is the biggest chicken in the woods. if public safety was their reason, then they need to study bears a little more. the bears that spook me are the "welfare" bears that hang out around campgrounds and black river. the ones that are used to folks getting scared and running away and leaving their ice chest or fish stringer for the bear. the ones they usually catch and haul off and release somewhere else. after this little bear was tranquilized, in a cage and at cluff ranch, he wasn't any kind of a threat to anyone. that doesn't wash.

 

there are dozens of bears that cross the gila valley every summer. it's a real common thing. some get seen, a lot don't. some friends were fishing at san carlos a couple years ago and in one day saw 4 different bears swimming across the lake. one day. bears travel. they can smell stuff for over 20 miles and when they get to it, they smell something else, and so on. killing them all is a dang stupid thing. there are a lot better ways to handle it. Lark.

[catclaw]

i've read that the pinaleno mountains (mt graham) has the densest black bear population per square mile on planet earth.

 

 

I heard that one time about 4 peaks too. It simply isn't true. Coastal Alaska, Coastal BC as well as Washington state have far higher bear densities that we can even imagine. States like NC and PA have far higher densities too. I have spent a fair amount of time on Mt. Graham and I haven't seen any more bears there than I see in many other places I hunt. I do believe it is ripe for bears coming into town and having theoretical conflicts though.

[TLH]

With all due respect to Lark, Amanda, Terry, and others......

 

Armchair quarter-backing is easy IMO. The guys had a decision to make, and they made it. I'm personally not going to second guess the decision because I wasn't there and do NOT know all of the facts.

 

Terry, nit-picking on the wording of 'animal' because they didn't write 'domestic animal' is a bit weak at this point. You knew what they meant, right??? Again, only IMO... (which I absolutely know doesn't mean much.... ) But; 'should have never happended.... '?? Really??? How do you really know what should or should not have happend? You weren't there.

 

S.

 

 

Stanley,

 

You know I respect what you have to say but like you said I wasn't there and neither were you. I have the right to speak my mind in this country and that is what I did. I do not care if anyone agrees or disagrees with me when I speak my mind because it is how "I" feel about something.

 

Also I believe an animal is an animal no matter domesticated or wild so when they state no animals were harmed then they for some reason have taken the bear out of the animal kingdom.

 

I still think they took the easy way out but I am open to a WM explaining why they killed the bear if they want to write me or post on this site.

 

Do you think it would have been the same if a male Mexican Grey Wolf wondered into town?? I don't!