Start a bear report!
Hope to go out looking this weekend. Will keep updating. Hope everyone will do likewise. Straight shooting!

I was up in the Paysaten area.
The lower section has been logged over.
Couldn't get into the back country, too much snow.
Didn't see much bear sign, probably due to the logging that would have just taken place.

I saw some show last night on TV that claimed that some of the Ministry of Env. Biologists believe strongly in their guestimate through DNA samples and other methods that the population of Grizzlies in BC is 13,000, even more possibly.

Whether it is ethical to hunt them or not, as they Biologist said is a Social science and is left up to what is believed to be ethical in Society. I'm just curious as to what people thing is a good management tactic for Grizzlies (for hunting) considering they have been proven to be an important part of an ecosystem. I'm not implying anything, just interesting in hearing some perspectives/beliefs on the issue.

I saw that program on Channel 5 Shaw as well
Scott and found it enlightening. Interesting how dependent the bears were dependent not only on the salmon returns but also on the slide areas where there were few trees so they could forage on the low grasses etc. during the low protein season. Good analysis of the Phillips watershed, north of Powell River, and they seemed to conclude the Grizzlies were in pretty good shape. The other conclusion was that there are at least 13,000 Grizzlies in the Province as opposed to the 3,000 that some maintain. I hope they are right, and thought their research and conclusions were fairly credible.

Crabs

Like to hear that. An informed opinion is the best kind!!!! Management should be of a conservative nature, where it isn't touch go from year to year (unlike so many of our rivers). I don't like the word sustainable population. The current management was more than ample with hunters hardly making a dent in the population. All of 250-300 bears are harvested annually, and some biologists say they would like to have much more harvested in their region as their is an over-abundance which will lead to a big crash in the future!!!!! And the people who claim the 3000 are less than credible, who didn't use scientific research, but instead they simply walked around one watershed during the spring when there weren't any fish around and from this they concluded their number. I like to see the truth come out, glad you guys caught that on tv!!!!

I have been hunting both black and grizzly bears for over 20 yrs now. As far as I am concerned they have a stable population and I am going to continue to hunt them both. The problem with issues like the great bear rain forest and the stop on grizzly bear hunting is people in the lower mainland let influential groups like green peace fill their heads with bogus ideas. I wonder if our premier has ever seen a grizzly bear in the wild and when I last checked the statistics on bear habitat after logging it showed that bear habitat and forage was actually increased. The spirit bear, what a nice name provided by green peace to a black bear that exhibits genes like that of a golden lab. Sorry to spoil the great bear rain forest but spirit bears are found throughout BC, perhaps one should actually take the time to travel through the wilderness of BC and form their own opinions. It must be nice to sit in your office in vancouver and make decisions about issues that you know nothing about.

Eddie, your hotmail account is inactive, can I get hold of you at UBC Dept of Forestry?
I want to talk to you about your earlier posts.

I talked to a guy who lives in Chetwynd.
He said they have over 200 unique Grizzly Bears that frequent one of their dumps.

200 there alone. 3000-4000 in the entire province???? Whatever. I've heard estimates from provincial publications as high as 20000 in BC.

Robert, its already been established that this moratorium is completely political, but lets take a look at something here. From the show which Crabs and I both saw, it was said that they figured there were 25 Bears in the vicinity of the Phillips River. Obviously these bears being an important part to any ecosystem are there for a reason. Also, the biologists said that they felt very strongly in their estimate of 13,000 or even possibly more Grizzly Bears in BC, but with the importance of Grizzlies to the ecosystem, how should they (if the hunt is reopened again) be managed? In the next 3 years, do you think that more will be discovered about the grizzly bear population in BC if the Biologists are already claiming they feel very strongly about their estimates now? How would you manage hunting and Grizzly bears while considering the ecosystem as well? How do you determine the carrying capacity of the province and its Grizzly Bears, when is there a "surplus?" Is there such thing as a "surplus." Is there anything we have done (garbage dumps may be one) that has offset the balance of natural bear populations which may yield a possible Surplus? Will we be aloud to hunt bears at garbage dumps? Some questions to maybe ask before hunting bears again? I'm not against the Hunt, but
I am for good management of the ecosystem so it can sustain itself and as I mentioned, it has been proven Bears are important to it. If they are as important as some claim then we have to carefully manage tags and who gets to hunt and where, etc.

Also,
I was at work today and I had a girl who I work with look at me after she asked what I did in my days off (and I told her fishing) and she knowing I was a catch and release fisherman primarily, asked me how I could hurt a fish with a hook and
then release it with pain. I basically told her to go Join Peta in a sarcastic tone of voice and then I asked her if she ever thought about how everytime she flushed a toilet she was taking away water from fish. The thing that pisses me off, is this person is more of a couch potatoe than anything and its people like this who make up this upsurd BS. I think thats why its so important that we influence the people who have made an effort to get out fishing/hunting and get as many people into the sport as possible, so they first off go out and see for themselves what its all about and secondly they don't fall victim to the political mumbo jumbo couch potatoe know it alls, not to say we don't fall in that category sometimes (grin). Its expected as humans that we appeal to a certain amount of emotion, but if everyone appeals to emotion with fishing and hunting, there would be no fishing and hunting.

The big issue with this grizzly moratorium is its seen as a victory for the other guys and its thought it is a gateway drug to the next moratorium or a permanent moratorium.
I think its time business gets taken care of and we get out and have people informed of some more important issues which are more sustainable and sound fishing and hunting practices to preserve the dignity and sanctity of two growing passions/sports in our province which attract and bring big dollars to help our economy.

I worked with the same sort of person once. She felt a fish that had been hooked was too traumatised to live properly - it should be killed. Next day I brought my priest (fish club) to work. When she cut herself on a staple I rushed out of my office swinging my priest and offered to put her out of her misery and trauma. She didn't get the joke.

Surplus meaning every animal and fish population in this province are controlled through harvesting. The idea is to have a consisent heard or numbers of animals so that there aren't huge population crashes, or farmer's getting po'd etc., Things such as deer, elk, moose are both hunted by hunters and bears, cougars, wolves etc., Now we control our harvest by limiting the numbers of permits, but we don't control bears as much as we should which makes the numbers uneven. The same goes with cougars, therefore we have too many predators for the number of prey and when the prey has a bad winter the predator numbers stumble 2-3 years later by a devastating amount. This means the cycles are huge, not what human's want prefering control. We control the balance with prey, but aren't with predator species! Does this make sense??? Hunting bears @ dumps would be un-ethical (nevermind what the meat would taste like), therefore those doing it would be considered poachers not hunters. The government is going to have to deal with that themselves, as hunter's won't be helping out on anything like that. And I don't think "we have to carefully manage tags and who gets to hunt and where, etc.(,)" because that was already being done. I'm not sure exactly where Phillips River is is but the average most for the majority of all m.u.s is 2-4 tags are let out annualy. If anyone knows the mu I can tell you how many authorizations were let out.
Out of the entire province 250-300 bears were harvested annualy. There are probably that many killed by cars. Here's an interesting stat for everyone. Every year there are more deer killed between the stretches of highway from Summerland to Penticton, and Kelowna to Rock Creek, than there are killed by hunters in the entire Okanagan.
The priest does the dirty work hey!!!! Funny.

Nice to see all the interest in the BC bear statistics discussion. Eddie I hope we can continue to hunt grizzlies, after the moratorium is lifted. But until then; they're closed and to hunt them is called POACHING! Back to the main topic. Friend of my got a 5 ft.+ brown colored bear on the 14th. Taxidermy buddy said thats the first he's had in. But then, it was also pretty early. Where you ask? Lets just say up the Fraser canyon. I'll be out again this weekend. Straight shooting.

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