Sun., March 13, 2022

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• https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/mar/13/samantha-bruegger-time-for-state-to-end-spring-bea/

Samantha Bruegger

By Samantha Bruegger

“Mama Bear” is a popular slogan on sweatshirts and bumper stickers, because many mothers, like me, identify with the ferocity with which a “Mama Bear” will protect her cubs.

Management of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife cannot relate; it denigrates empathy for animals, or concern for their ethical treatment, as “emotional” and “unscientific.” To department management, our wildlife exists only to be “harvested,” whenever and however hunters choose.

This disregard for ethical mores explains the department’s recommendation that the Fish and Wildlife Commission reverse the decision it made last fall, and approve a permanent spring hunting season to allow hunters to target bears when they are weak, slow and easy to kill. Experts agree spring bear hunts inevitably kill nursing mothers and leave orphaned cubs to die, which is one reason they are supported…