WHAT’S THE VALUE OF A BEAR?

IMG_4637 cropped

 

When hunters, trappers, Wildlife Services (government trappers) and others kill wildlife, the public loses an asset that can be priced, but never is.  Sportsmen and government trappers may tout the money spent to kill the animal as an economic boost to the community, but they don’t subtract the economic value of the animal’s life which is lost to the Public Trust.

Here is a little exercise to show you how pricing the value of an animal’s life can work.

Click for WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A BEAR

 

 

HOW DANGEROUS ARE BLACK BEARS AT A GARBAGE DUMP? ANSWER: NOT VERY.

Clink for Herrero black bear garbage dump paper

IMG_4637 cropped

This paper by Stephen Herrero from the 70’s details his observations of 34 bears in over 700 encounters with humans and other bears at a garbage dump in Jasper.  It’s worth a read because Herrero is an expert on adverse bear/human encounters.  And it’s a bit of faded history since garbage dumps are no longer available to bears as they were in this paper, in Yellowstone during the same era and elsewhere.

 

 

SAGE GROUSE HUNTING: MAKES SENSE OR NOT SO MUCH?

Click here Sage-grouse Hunting in Nevada

Sage_Grouse_in_Grand_Teton_NP-NPS

Here is how the Nevada Department of Wildlife defends sage grouse hunting.  It claims that those few thousand birds killed each years by hunters would have died anyway or have left things better for those that remain. (Compensatory mortality).  Yet, if one raven takes one sage grouse egg from a nest, it’s like a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan and starting a hurricane of destruction in the Atlantic.(Additive Mortality)  Makes no sense.  Time to stop sage grouse hunting in Nevada.  It’s the right thing to do.

 

Coyotes/Mountain Lions killed vs Mule Deer Numbers 2000-2013

Project Coyote coyote picture 1

 

Coyotes and mountain lions have been killed in Nevada for many years in a forlorn hope that their deaths will “create” more mule deer for sportsmen to kill. Many sportsmen  believe, erroneously, that predators determine prey numbers instead of the other way round.  In the past dozen years, the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners has spent over $5 million to kill these animals (and poison ravens to “create” sage grouse).  Here are numbers reflecting the total annual kill of coyotes and mountain lions, statewide, from all causes for each year alongside NDOW’s official estimate of the mule deer population in this state.  You can decide whether sportsmen are “out to lunch” on this issue.

Click NDOW Coyotes Lions Killed vs Mule Deer Numbers 2000 – 2013