Grizzlies in the Bighorns

[dgc1963]

I watched a video of a house member I believe he was from Montanna asking the secretary of interior Deb Haaland about the numbers of Grizzly bears
The objective number for yellow stone was 500 and out side of yellow stone 800 the numbers now are 900 and 1300 she could not say we reached the objection or not (guess she has math issues)
And couldn't say if the management should be returned to the states how the heck can someone be in a position like that an not answer basic questions

 

[bayoublaster7527]

Haaland’s testimony on committees and before Congress is so bad, it is truly hard to watch. Her inability to answer simple questions and incessant stumbling makes you question her competency and ability to lead a department.

 

[Cornbread]

Haaland’s testimony on committees and before Congress is so bad, it is truly hard to watch. Her inability to answer simple questions and incessant stumbling makes you question her competency and ability to lead a department.

The number of competent people in the govt on both sides is quite limited. Voters are dumb. They keep asking these incompetents to solve our problems. We deserve them.

 

[Little Canyon Creek]

I wasn't going to say anything on this thread because I didn't see the point. But you know what? After reading some of the comments here, screw it. I am guessing that I have a much better perspective of this place than some (not all) of the commentators here, as my dad grew up on our family ranch three miles from where this bear got killed. I have spent an untold number of days running around the upper Nowood fishing and hunting on my family's place and the surrounding public land. Hell, my handle on this site is literally the name of the creek where this bear died.

I was elk hunting in the valley last fall, and we heard that there was a grizzly bear running around. To be honest, I thought the family members who said this didn't know what they were talking about. I figured someone saw a cinnamon colored black bear (there are a very small number of black bears in the area) and thought it was a grizzly. I have seen people misidentify small cinnamon black bears as grizzlies in Yellowstone, so this seemed the most logical explanation.

Well, I guess I was wrong and I owe some family members a beer at the Ten Sleep Brewery. I did make fun of my cousin for carrying bear spray, when it turns out we were unknowingly hunting in grizzly country. It didn't matter though, as not even a coyote found the elk carcass in the three days it took to pack out my bull. It was a nice bull, and I would post a picture. But quite frankly, I am leaving way too many easily pieced together clues to responsibly post grip and grin pictures on a public forum.

Some of the people on this thread need to read Hunting Trips of a Ranchman by Teddy Roosevelt. In one chapter he describes his trip to the Bighorn Mountains to go grizzly bear hunting. To say TR got into the bears is a severe understatement. While the southern Bighorns are pretty mediocre black bear habitat, I have always thought it seemed like much better grizzly bear habitat. The middle and northern sections of the Bighorns would probably be even better grizzly habitat than the southern Bighorns. So any issues with having grizzlies in the Bighorns are almost entirely social in nature.

(An aside, at one point TR talks about looking down a canyon and watching one of the creeks leave the mountains and entering the Bighorn Basin. I sometimes wonder which creek Teddy was looking down. Was it Ten Sleep Creek? Paint Rock Creek? Shell Creek? Or maybe one of the many other smaller creeks that flow through the stunning canyons along the west side of the Bighorns. I really wish I knew.)

And I guess that gets me to my biggest hangup with the some of the people commenting on this thread. It appears to me that some of you think grizzly bears are a punishment that is meant to be foisted onto people you do not like or identify with. I honestly cannot fathom this viewpoint. Getting to have grizzly bears is not a punishment, it is an utmost priviledge. Being able to restore a native species to its native range should be the goal of hunters whereever possible if we wish to consider ourselves conservationists. And maybe we can't have grizzly bears in the Bighorns. I certainly think we can, but this is why we have working groups and commissions where all stakeholders can decide important issues. However, if the answer is we currently can't have grizzly bears in the Bighorns, that should not make anyone rejoice. Rather, we should lament our inability to restore grizzly bears to where they belong. Each and every one of us is poorer for not having grizzly bears in the Bighorns.