Grizzlies to eat hippies and other unwanted

[Fairweather]

They could race bicycles. Or compete in synchronized swimming events.

[dberdinka]

I'm personally on the don't reintroduce grizzly bears to NCNP side of things. Maybe taking your kids hiking in the woods changes your perspective on things.

 

Speaking of hyperbole proponents of reintroduction routinely a small population currently exists yet for years of attempts to document that they've never had a single confirmed sighting, photo, sample. To wit the info page here has a photo of a griz from north of the border.

 

http://www.conservationnw.org/what-we-do/northcascades/north-cascades-grizzly-bear

 

Not sure if the hiker spotted grizx in 2010 near Sahale Arm was validated or not?

[num1mc]

 

Not sure if the hiker spotted griz in 2010 near Sahale Arm was validated or not?

 

I think a large group of wildlife biologists thought that it was a grizzly. Whats weird though, is that a hiker took a picture of a similar looking bear in the same general area a couple of months previous to that. The WDFW looked at the photograph, and declared it to be a black bear. So the jury is still out.

 

All this was chronicled in at NWHikers, where all that really happened was that a Federal Biologist coined the term "ego vomit".

 

http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?44731-Hope-Solo-vs-Alex-Morgan

[Rad]

I'm personally on the don't reintroduce grizzly bears to NCNP side of things. Maybe taking your kids hiking in the woods changes your perspective on things.

 

Grizzlies are mostly opportunistic scavengers like other bears. If you don't get between mama and her cubs you should be fine. I read the Alaskan Bear Tales book years ago while traveling in AK and came away with the understanding that black bears are more likely to hunt you for food than grizzlies, then only if the bear is starving or deranged. Either one can kill you if they want to do so. They just aren't interested.

 

Cougars are carnivorous hunters that are more dangerous than bears, more likely to go after a small child than a bear, and they're already here. Still, I would feel honored to see one in the wild in WA.

 

The most dangerous animal out there is surely homo sapiens.

[Kit]

I'll get over the ski pole, emotionally. But not yet. These characteristic megafauna can only be dealt with on an emotional level. Kind of like those horrible, evil feral horses.

 

I think there is still lingering controversy about whether the sahale bear photo was a griz. But if they do occasionally range into the cascades already, I think that would be a strong argument against reintroduction.

 

Let's focus instead on habitat improvement, habitat conservation, and habitat connectivity. Then let's deal with the hundreds (thousands?) of miles of unfunded road maintenance on federal land in the Washington cascades that threatens T&E fish. Then let's try to improve the wildlife/landowner conflict surrounding the Nooksack herd. Then let's figure out and finally ban the chemicals that are killing off all of our amphibians and honey bees. Lots of things on the to do list first.

[ivan]

does this mean that soon the sioux will be reintroduced to their old ranges?

[wfinley]

Grizzlies are mostly opportunistic scavengers like other bears. If you don't get between mama and her cubs you should be fine.

I used to tell myself that until last summer when I found myself mere inches away from a grizzly with an open mouth and bad fish breath screaming at me. We were biking and he charged... thankfully it was a bluff charge but all he would have had to do was lift a paw and two mountain bikers would have been sprawled out on the trail for lunch.

[JasonG]

Rad-

 

When you work around bears long enough, you'll find that isn't always the case. Sometimes you catch a bear on a bad day, and that really sucks for both you and them (eventually). I'm not sure why browns/griz tend to have more bad days than black bears, but that has consistently been my experience.

 

Kit- well said!

[Pete_H]

Wanting to keep bears out of the north cascades is a little like chipping holds... So please don't ruin it for those of us who prefer our mountains to be as wild as they want to be. More bears. More wild. More real.

 

The natural ecosystem has already been so messed up by human involvement (through habitat and wildlife corridor destruction, for example) the reintroduction of a tangential species to the ecosystem seems pretty arbitrary. Efforts would be better spent improving salmon habitat or taking out dams, or something.

[tvashtarkatena]

I came screaming down a hairpin in Pemberton area during the mountain bike leg of an adventure race and damn near hit a grizzly in the middle of the road.

 

I added that to my "things not to hit" list, just below 'oncoming train'.

[num1mc]

I saw Hope Solo at a liquor store once. I almost got between her and the door. Thankfully I didn't.

[Rad]

I saw Hope Solo at a liquor store once. I almost got between her and the door. Thankfully I didn't.

 

as long as you weren't between her and the liquor!

 

[Rad]

Jason,

I've encountered a number of bears, but probably not nearly as many as people who are around them for work.

 

 

Wanting to keep bears out of the north cascades is a little like chipping holds... So please don't ruin it for those of us who prefer our mountains to be as wild as they want to be. More bears. More wild. More real.

 

The natural ecosystem has already been so messed up by human involvement (through habitat and wildlife corridor destruction, for example) the reintroduction of a tangential species to the ecosystem seems pretty arbitrary. Efforts would be better spent improving salmon habitat or taking out dams, or something.

 

We already spend way more $$$ on salmon than almost any other endangered species. Removing dams would be good, but Kit has some good ideas.