Maybe it is because the “terminator” took a political beating at the hands of a very “blue” state , but “Arnie”, now behind Gore, is one of my political hero’s. He signed the very visionary Global Warming Act. Political correctness “be dammed ” and blow the “naredewells”, who for now occupy our the Nation’s Capital, away!!!
Matt
An Idaho hunter shot a hybrid polar/brown bear cross this past April 16 on Banks Island in Canada. While the DNA of the brown and polar bear are close there has not been a known hybrid in the wild before now.
When I was a child they had a hybrid cross of a brown and polar bear in the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington D.C. .
The bear was very large and more polar bear-like in appearance. They called it a Kermode Polar Bear. I do not know if that name is a misnomer. The Kermode Black Bear is a white phase black bear commonly called Spirit Bear, or Moksgmol, by the Coastal B.C. Natives, known as the Tshim Shan Indians.
Matt
The last time grizzly bears were struggling in Yellowstone they were hunted. Most grizzlies were maurauding in public campgrounds, and other places as well. These bears were removed from the population. The least the agencies could do was to list the bear as Threatened, and put a stop to the hunting. The bears made a population come back, because they were protected.
As long as grizzlies were protected the food was there for them to make a comeback and human access was somewhat controlled, Yellowstone Grizzlies poulated their habitat to the extent that they optimally could.
The bear was listed under the Endangered Species Act. The game departments of the states did their parts and stopped the hunts. The USDA Forest Service primarily resisted the bear’s recovery. Private lands surrounding the park were a real problem, because they were developed in spite of the bear.
To delist the bear now, and restart a hunt, and to face the effects of a changing climate, especially over the next 50 years, are the wrong parameters for delisting the grizzly bear in the Yellowstone sub-population. A burgeoning grizzly population in this area is only a short-term gain for the agencies, especially the US Fish and Wildlife Service, regardless of how a delisting is rationalized.
Matt
Call your senator and tell he or she to oppose HR 5429, to be read just after Labot Day, the latest attempt by the “Do Nothing Congress” to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Range. Oppose the move!
Matt
Go to McNeil Brown Bears, or Friends of the McNeil website! They seem to be a very credable organization, and have a good website about their organization and the issue of hunting brown bears in the McNeil Game Range. They are opposed to that prospect.
It is after the fact for the issue but I think Alaskans need to hear how important these bears are to people in the lower 48.
The Alaskan Game board, seem to be resiliant to the prospect of bear viewing tourizm, and the large amount of revenue it brings to the state.
I do not think brown bear hunting is important to the larger picture of hunting, and what it means to the average Alaskan. But brown bear viewing is mostly done with Alaskan Guides, and every year they make more and more from brown bears. The lotteryied McNeil Bears were the start of all this and should have special protection as a result.
Alaskans instead, choose to ”play with fire”. With Murkowski out of the way, maybe someone reasonable will step forward for the bears and their advocates.
Matt
I wrote a post about the website-McNeil Brown Bears.
The same post, on another site, had information attached to my words promoting bear hunting.
I want to be clear. I do not support any form of bear hunting!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The bear hunting videos are not supported by me.
Thanks.
Matt
These Mc Neil Bears are very large Alaskan Brown Bears. The mature female, with cubs are about 600 pounds, or the size of large a Yellowstone male grizzly. The male bears are mature at 800 to 1,300 pounds. These bears become large because concentratedr food resource. Razor clams, salmon, berries, and vegetal food is quite abundentl. They see most of this food in the late summer and early fall.
The hunt is supposed to be squewed towards the large males, but the immatue, aggressive 400-600 pound males full of Testosterone, are the most dangerous bears usually, and the males that are shot.
Some of the old ears are very docile, others are very aggressive, when theyt feel intruded upon.
McNeil Creek,and area, is used by about 150 bears.
Most of the bears life cycle is either in Katmai National Park, or the protected McNeil Game preserve.
Bears have become tolerent of an expected human behaviorial pattern. Hunting will change that, and add to the unpredictability of humans.
Bears, for the first few years, will expect humans to behave very tolerent and submissive to them. That will change if hunting is allowed in McNeil Game Range. After several decades ,a generation of bears, including the bears that keep a social fabric of bears together, will change.
Ecotourizm, for bears, is very quickly replacing brown bear hunting in this part of Alaska. Thumb River Brown Bear viewing in nearby Kodiak Island National Wildlife Refuge, allows males to be hunted in the nearby Karluk Lake. Six hundred pound bears are common, but large multi-thousand pound bears are becoming rarer, as we speak, certainly since the days of the first guided brown bear hunts nearby .
Matt
The McNeil bears should not be hunted. I first heard about the issue on CBS News. I have been to the McNeil. I have viewed the tolerant bears there. I think these are the bears that will be shot when they stray from the protection of Katmai National Park and the McNeil Sanctuary. That is no, let me repeat, NO, feat to shoot these tolerent bears, by hunters.
I believe that if Chums or Dogs (salmon) are down in numbers in these creeks I want to hear it, unfiltered, from Alaska Department of Fish and Game, (ADFG), Sport and Commercial Fisheries people, not from the Alaskan Board of ADFG or Frank Murkowski.
Then I want to see the bear people, including Aumiller and the Hechtel types, to see if there is a non-hunting solution to the issue.
Aumiller is retired from McNeil after 30 years working for ADFG. He needs to be asked. One of the reasons he gave for retiring, is that the bears at McNeil, he helped become tolerent of humans, would be probably easily hunted because of their “tolerent to human”, behavior.
Hechtel is a good person, tolerent of hunting brown bears from the Arctic of Alaska, but he will do what is right for brown bears.
Will the Alaska ADFG Board? Will Murkowski?
Matt
Juliet Eilperin, an author of good Climate Change articles is trying to follow Global Warming through a one year weather window. It cannot be done.
I believe what most of the persons following weather are saying, but it seems very different then what is being said about the complicated issue of Climate Change.
I believe Climate Change is happening, and we are the largest contributer. it as a phenomina it hat is slow, but in icrements it is happening.
The question is, how hard do yo want to fall?
Matt
We can do what Brazil has done!
I remember a time as a fresman in college when I took a typing class on a typewriter. That would not happen in todays Dell, or whatever you use, market.
Matt
