Sheila Leslie
This opinion column was submitted byRGJ columnist Sheila Leslie, who served in the Nevada Legislature from 1998 to 2012.
If ever there were a time to re-evaluate the decision to allow trophy bear hunting in Nevada, it’s this year. Our unprecedented wildfire season has decimated prime bear habitat, leaving dehydrated and thirsty bears homeless, no doubt traumatized by the extreme heat and smoke and utterly confused by the loss of their territory. The photos of bears wandering the streets of South Lake Tahoe during the mandatory evacuation searching for food, waterand a safe place to sleep were heartbreaking.
Nevada’s annual hunting of the bears has been controversial from the start. The Nevada Department of Wildlife authorized the hunt in 2011 purely for recreational purposes and not as a management tool to control the population. Hunters dismissed the objections from wildlife conservationists as ignorant urban Nevadans not understanding…
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Exposing the Big Game 