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Category Archives: Bears

B.C. cub case is unbearably stupid

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Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald
More from Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald

July 10, 2015 | Last Updated: July 10, 2015 3:00 AM MDT

Black bear cubs Athena and Jordan look on from their enclosure at the North Island Wildlife Recovery Association in Errington, B.C. CHAD HIPOLITO / THE CANADIAN PRESS

How strange to be a conservation officer and then risk getting punished for doing your job and conserving things.

B.C. conservation officer Bryce Casavant has been suspended with pay pending an investigation into why he let a couple of black bear cubs live. The eight-week-old cubs lost their mother, who was killed because she’d repeatedly been foraging in a freezer of fish and meat at a Port Hardy mobile home.

Casavant refused to kill the cubs, who were in a tree at the site, calling for their mother. Instead, he tranquillized them, and took them to a veterinarian, from where they were sent to a wildlife recovery centre.

Casavant did the right thing. He should be reinstated immediately. The argument that at eight weeks, these babies were already habituated to human food, and thus likely to grow up to be problem bears, is nonsense, based on studies of how bear cubs develop.

According to bearrehabilitation.org: “Sally Maughan, founder of Idaho Black Bear Rehab, Inc. has recorded extensive notes on cub development over her rehabilitation career. In general, the infant stage ranges from birth to eight weeks old. In that time, the eyes and ears open, teeth erupt, and exploration and wobble walking begin. Between eight to 12 weeks, cubs seem to pass through the bear equivalent of the terrible twos. There are swift emotional changes from calm to biting, attacking, scratching, and crying tantrums. At four to seven months old cubs are at the age of destruction and social learning as they roughhouse with siblings and other orphans. From eight months to dispersion, peace breaks out as the cubs mature and ceaselessly learn about their environment.”

In other words, the B.C. cubs didn’t have a clue what their mother was doing and they shouldn’t be punished with death for simply tagging along. It’s not like mom could get a babysitter for them while she went grocery shopping.

As Angelika Langen, co-founder of the Smithers-based Northern Lights Wildlife Society, told the media: “It’s just ridiculous. There is absolutely no scientific proof that cubs that follow their mothers for (human) food at this age have learned anything. When they’re little like this, they’re just following mom; they’re not learning yet. When they’re more than one year, it’s a totally different story.”

Chris Doyle, acting deputy chief of the Conservation Officer Service, told the media in Victoria that the Port Hardy cubs “had some level of habituation and food conditioning.” Doyle should know better than that. Casavant certainly did.

Thousands of people have signed a petition online lauding Casavant and insisting he be reinstated. I don’t think it’s just because bear cubs are cute and fuzzy. I think it’s because, as in the case of the cougar that was fatally shot last year as it peacefully sunned itself on the lawn of Calgary’s South Health Campus, people are sick and tired of the senseless and unnecessary deaths of wildlife.

A lot of people didn’t buy the official explanation that cleared the cougar shooting as a matter of public safety after some initial bumbling with tranquillizer guns. The cougar was bothering no one.

Of such incidents that make the news, one of the few that was handled properly — that is, no animal was needlessly killed — was the case of the Scenic Acres moose. When a mother moose and her twin calves turned up in a ravine in the northwest Calgary community in May, and failed to leave after a few weeks, officials tranquillized the mother, rounded up the calves, and moved the family far away out of the city.

Casavant should go back to work — he is obviously a highly competent, caring and humane individual — and the cubs should be cared for at the rehab centre until they can be released into the wild. The focus should always be on finding ways to let wildlife live, rather than killing them.

Naomi Lakritz is a Herald columnist.

http://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/lakritz-b-c-cub-case-is-unbearably-stupid

Petitioning Ministry of Environment, Canada

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Petitioning Ministry of Environment Mary Polak

Reinstate conservation officer Bryce Casavant

North Island Wildlife Awareness
130,442
Supporters

Conservation Officer Bryce Casavant has been suspended without pay pending a performance investigation after he refused to put down two bear cubs this weekend.

These baby bears, a brother and sister, were orphaned after their mother had to be destroyed after she had, at least twice, broken into a freezer of salmon and deer meat inside a mobile home on Hardy Bay Road, “through no fault of the owner.” “Although it is unlikely the mother was in town due to the fire, it is hard to know,” said Casavant.

On July 5, Casavant and members of the Port Hardy Fire Department literally pulled out all stops to rescue the babies who had come back to the property and were up a tree calling for their mother.

“They (firefighters) had their high-angle rescue specialist scale the tree and rappel down on top of the bears to lower them to me. I then tranquilized them by hand,” said Casavant.

The babies were estimated to be about eight weeks and weigh 20 to 25 pounds, are healthy and still nursing.

Please sign this petition to show your support to have Bryce Casavant reinstated as conservation officer to the North Island.

Letter to
Ministry of Environment Mary Polak
Reinstate conservation officer Bryce Casavant
https://www.change.org/p/ministry-of-environment-mary-polak-reinstate-conservation-officer-bryce-casavant?tk=QWdq4wg4bFBdVdRIfWiOm52iY2_F87I-HB-wGyS8gJU&utm_source=petition_update&utm_medium=email

Conservation-officer-who-refused-to-kill-bear-cubs-back-on-payroll

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http://bc.ctvnews.ca/conservation-officer-who-refused-to-kill-bear-cubs-back-on-payroll-1.2460017

Andrew Weichel, Online Reporter / Editor, CTV Vancouver

 Wednesday, July 8, 2015 8:00PM PDT

A B.C. conservation officer suspended without pay for not euthanizing two five-month-old bear cubs is back on the payroll following widespread public outrage.

The province’s Government and Service Employees’ Union confirmed Wednesday that Bryce Casavant is being paid once again, but the officer remains suspended pending the outcome of a government investigation into the incident.

The reversal came after a petition supporting Casavant started circulating online, gathering nearly 50,000 signatures. Actor Ricky Gervais also brought the incident into the international spotlight with a tweet Tuesday evening.

Related Stories

Photos

Bear rescue

Conservation officer Bryce Casavant is seen trying to calm a bear cub before taking it to a rehabilitation organization on Vancouver Island in this still from a YouTube video.

“Bryce Casavant, conservation officer, suspended for refusing to kill bear cubs,” wrote Gervais, who has more than 9 million followers. “Reinstate this honourable man.”

Casavant was suspended for his response to an incident on Vancouver Island over the weekend, when the cubs’ mother was caught eating salmon from a freezer at a property near Port Hardy.

The sow was destroyed, but Casavant refused an order to euthanize its young cubs.

On Wednesday, the Conservation Officer Service held a press conference to stress that the decision to euthanize wildlife is never taken lightly.

“It’s always a very difficult situation. It’s a situation that no conservation officer wants to be in,” said Chris Doyle, acting deputy for provincial operations.

“Obviously the preference is to keep the bears alive and wild and to prevent conflicts from happening in the first place.”

Doyle said senior Ministry of Environment staff, biologists and wildlife veterinarians together determine how to deal with orphan cubs using a number of assessment tools, including the animals’ health, the level of habituation, and the level of food conditioning.

Doyle said he couldn’t provide any details on Casavant’s suspension, including who was responsible or what the reasons were, but said there were concerns the bears he saved could have been a problem.

“The initial information is that the bears were exposed to conflict, they had some level of habituation and food conditioning,” he said.

“We’re investigating the circumstances of that situation and all the actions that took place and I’m not going to comment further on the personnel issue.”

Rather than kill the cubs, Casavant brought them to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Association, a rehabilitation facility that regularly takes in bears and releases them back into the wild.

On Tuesday, the facility’s founder Robin Campbell defended Casavant and called his suspension “unbelievable.”

“He’s a family guy and they suspend him without pay,” he said.

The rescued cubs show no apparent signs of habituation and could be released next summer, Campbell added.

Doyle said the public can help prevent conservation officers from having to kill bears and other wildlife by being responsible and managing the garbage and other attractants on their properties.

For more information on reducing conflict being humans and wildlife, visit the Wild Safe B.C. website.

B.C. conservation officer suspended for refusing to put down bear cubs

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Bryce Casavant, a Vancouver Island conservation officer has been suspended without pay, pending a performance investigation for refusing to put down a pair of bear cubs near Port Hardy last weekend.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-conservation-officer-suspended-after-failing-to-put-down-bear-cubs/article25349738/

A B.C. Conservation officer has been suspended without pay after he reportedly refused an order to put down two bear cubs last weekend.

The cubs were orphaned after their mother was killed for breaking into a meat freezer inside a mobile home in Port Hardy on Vancouver Island.

After tranquilizing the cubs, Bryce Casavant brought them to a vet to be checked out and then to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Association operated by Robin Campbell.

Campbell says the bears, believed to be around eight weeks old, were at the home only because they were looking for their mother.

An online petition has been launched by the association calling on B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak to reinstate Casavant.

The petition had collected well over 17,000 names by early Wednesday.

North Island Wildlife Awareness
55,322
Supporters

Conservation Officer Bryce Casavant has been suspended without pay pending a performance investigation after he refused to put down two bear cubs this weekend.
These baby bears, a brother and sister, were orphaned after their mother had to be destroyed after she had, at least twice, broken into a freezer of salmon and deer meat inside a mobile home on Hardy Bay Road, “through no fault of the owner.”
“Although it is unlikely the mother was in town due to the fire, it is hard to know,” said Casavant.
On July 5, Casavant and members of the Port Hardy Fire Department literally pulled out all stops to rescue the babies who had come back to the property and were up a tree calling for their mother.
“They (firefighters) had their high-angle rescue specialist scale the tree and rappel down on top of the bears to lower them to me. I then tranquilized them by hand,” said Casavant.
The babies were estimated to be about eight weeks and weigh 20 to 25 pounds, are healthy and still nursing.

They did nothing wrong and the order to destroy them came came in even before we had the little things out of the tree. I’m not sure how a decision can be made so quickly based on so little information from so far away. -Justin Reusch Port Hardy Fire Department.

Please sign this petition to show your support to have Bryce Casavant reinstated as conservation officer to the North Island.

Washington residents split on reintroducing grizzly bears

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http://www.king5.com/story/tech/science/environment/2015/06/15/north-cascades-reintroducing-grizzly-bears-debate/71252514/

Teresa Yuan, KING 5 June 15, 2015

NORTH BEND, Wash – The debate to reintroduce grizzly bears to the North Cascades has drawn support and criticism.

The National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service drafted a plan to bring the endangered species back to the North Cascades almost 30 years ago as the their numbers were dwindling.

This process has been slow until public meetings held by the federal government around Western Washington in March. In total, nearly 500 people showed up.

The government received more than 3,000 comments throughout the process, with grizzly bears being called “man-eating monsters” to “mystical creatures.”

Under the federal government’s plan, the protected grizzly bear would be returned to federal lands running from the Canadian border to Wenatchee, and extending west to Darrington and North Bend.

Biologists believe there used to be as many as 100,000 grizzlies on the West Coast. Now, there may be only two dozen left in Washington.

In one of the 3,000 comments, a supporter wrote: “Grizzly bears are an icon that represent healthy wilderness eco-systems in the Pacific Northwest. To sustain an integral part of what makes our country unique and wonderful we must sustain umbrella species such as the grizzly bear.”

On the other side, someone posted: “As much as I love wildlife, I am not supportive of re-introduction of grizzlies to Washington state. I also find that hiking in Glacier and Yellowstone to be extremely scary, and I want a wild place to go where I don’t have worry about grizzlies.”

The federal government is expected to make a final recommendation in late 2017 about whether or not to reintroduce the grizzly bears back to the North Cascades.

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Severely burned bear finally ready to return to the wild

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Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

By Published: Jun 2, 2015

WENATCHEE, Wash. — A black bear rescued from Washington’s largest ever wildfire is about to be free again.

The bear was starving and severely burned in the Carlton Complex of fires, and there were serious concerns about her chances for survival. But as Wildlife Biologist Rich Beausoleil got his first look at the bear in months, he was happy with what he saw.

“She looks amazing,” he said.

This is the closest the bear, now named Cinder, has been to her home territory in the Methow Valley in nearly a year. It’s almost hard to believe the 124 pound bear is the same one who was rescued from the fire last August.

“Isn’t that something?” Beausoleil said as he examined her paws. ” Some of these claws in the front, there was only two. And now there’s all five again.”

Those claws are key for Cinder to be able to climb trees and forage for food. When she was suffering from third degree burns, Cinder couldn’t even walk. A volunteer pilot flew her to the Lake Tahoe Wildlife Center in California, where a team treated her injuries. Then, six months ago, Cinder moved to Idaho Black Bear Rehab.

As her food was slowly reduced before the winter, natural instincts kicked in, and she denned up. When she came out, she was with two other bears — one from Wyoming and a cub that had been orphaned near Leavenworth.

“When they came out of the den, the Wyoming bear got a little pushy,” Beausoleil explained. “Cinder stepped in. ‘I’m going to keep the peace. I don’t like what’s happening here, back off.'”

Ever since, the smaller bear stuck by Cinder’s side. The two will be released together. Beausoleil says they might stay together anywhere from two days to two months, but because they are solitary animals, he’s certain they’ll eventually separate.

He should know where both wind up. The bears are collared with GPS units that will send back information. The collars are designed to eventually fall off as the bear grows, but the hope is they will last long enough to track the animals’ progress. Two winters from now, Beausoleil hopes to track Cinder to her den with help from the collar.

“We don’t know what the outcomes going to be, but we’re going to give her the best chance possible we’re putting her in a great spot where she’s going to make a heck of a living,” he said.

And based on how she cared for the smaller bear, Beausoleil says thriving could include having her own cubs.

“She has that motherly instinct and she’s probably going to be a pretty good first time mom. Maybe next year or the year after she’ll wind up having cubs of her own. I hope she’s still collared and we can document it,” he said.

Conservationists Challenge Grizzly Killing in Grand Teton National Park

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Federally approved ‘take’ of grizzly bears threatens recovery

Grizzly bear and cub in Yellowstone National Park.

Grizzly bear and cub in Yellowstone National Park.  Jim Peaco / National Park Service

Washington, D.C. —(ENEWSPF)–April 6, 2015. Conservation groups have filed a legal challenge against two federal agencies for approving the killing of four grizzly bears, a threatened species, within Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming.

The lawsuit, filed last Friday, April 3, by Earthjustice on behalf of the Sierra Club and Western Watersheds Project, targets September 2013 actions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Park Service to allow the lethal “taking” of four grizzly bears over the next seven years in connection with a fall elk hunt in Grand Teton National Park.

“Authorizing the killing of four grizzly bears in a national park is not good management for grizzlies or national parks,” said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso. “The government should be working to eliminate grizzly mortality threats, not handing out authorizations to kill grizzly bears in one of our nation’s premiere national parks.”

The agencies authorized the challenged grizzly “takings” in response to an incident on Thanksgiving Day 2012 in which three hunters participating in the Grand Teton elk hunt shot and killed an adult male grizzly bear.  Anticipating more such conflicts as the region’s grizzlies increasingly turn to meat-based food sources such as hunter-killed or wounded elk, federal officials in September 2013 approved the killing of four more grizzly bears in connection with future elk hunts in Grand Teton through the year 2022.

In doing so, however, government officials failed to consider the cumulative impacts of the expected Grand Teton “takings” together with other grizzly bear mortality that federal agencies have authorized.  The authorized killing of these four grizzlies, when added to the amount of other similar grizzly  “take” determinations issued by FWS and currently in effect for other actions in the Greater Yellowstone region, could result in the killing of as many as 65 female grizzly bears in a single year. This level of mortality exceeds sustainable levels for female bears set by government biologists by more than three times.

“Allowing four additional grizzly bears – a threatened species – to be killed in one our nation’s most iconic national parks, without even requiring significant measures to reduce conflicts between people and bears, is inexcusable,” said Bonnie Rice with Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign. “The Fish and Wildlife Service has repeatedly increased the number of grizzly bears that can be killed, without looking at the broader impact on grizzly recovery in the region.”

“Throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service appears to have forgotten basic math,” added Jonathan Ratner of Western Watersheds Project.  “They have been handing out permits for the killing of grizzly bears like candy but they have conveniently forgotten to add up all of the take they have authorized.”

Legal Document: http://earthjustice.org/documents/legal-document/complaint-conservationists-challenge-grizzly-killing-in-grand-teton-national-park

Background:

Federal biologists acknowledge that the growth of the Yellowstone grizzly bear population has flattened over the past decade. Recently, the grizzly population has been faced with the loss of two of its most important food sources in the Yellowstone region—whitebark pine seeds and cutthroat trout—due to changing environmental conditions driven in part by a warming climate. In the wake of these changes, scientists have documented the bears’ transition to a more meat-based diet, but that diet leads to a greater potential for conflict with human activities, resulting in more grizzly mortalities.

Such increasing grizzly bear mortalities are of particular concern because analysis of government grizzly bear conflict and mortality data shows a declining population trend for the Yellowstone-area population from 2007-2013. Veteran grizzly biologist David Mattson documented these findings in a declaration supporting the conservationists’ challenge.

In its decision , FWS reasoned that approved grizzly killing associated with the Grand Teton elk hunt would remain within sustainable levels. However, the conservationists contend that FWS cannot rely on compliance with sustainable grizzly mortality thresholds to justify additional killing of Yellowstone bears unless federal officials consider the impacts of all the grizzly bear mortality they have anticipated across the region.

The Grand Teton elk hunt results from a misguided program of winter elk feeding on the nearby Jackson Hole National Elk Refuge. The longstanding elk feeding program began for the altruistic purpose of sustaining elk through the harsh Northern Rockies winter.  More recently, however, the crowding of elk on winter feed lines has been documented to subject the elk to a severe threat of wildlife disease mortality that outweighs the benefits of feeding.  Further, the practice has led to the artificial inflation of the elk population such that the extraordinary step of hunting in a national park—with associated grizzly bear mortality—has been deemed necessary to control elk numbers.

Matteson Declaration: http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/Mattson%20Declaration.pdf

About Earthjustice

Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.

Source: www.earthjustice.org

NJ State inflating bear population total to justify expanded hunt

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http://www.nj.com/sussex-county/index.ssf/2015/03/nj_bear_hunt_animal-rights_group_doubt_population.html

BySeth Augenstein | NJ Advance Media for
March 04, 2015
Opponents of a bigger, longer bear hunt charged today that the state is
artificially inflating the number of bruins in New Jersey to placate
hunters, and have vowed to fight a plan to kill more bears each year.

The state’s Fish and Game Council unanimously approved a bear
“management” plan Tuesday that would open the majority of North Jersey
to the hunt adding a total of 633 square miles of new hunting grounds.

The plan would also lengthen the hunt to as much as 16 days each year,
including a week in October, instead of just the current 6-day December
season. The use of bows and arrows would also be allowed.

The bear population is the big contention point, as it has been for more
than a decade of courtroom battles and public protests.

“We’ll be considering all our options — including legal options,” added
Doris Lin, director of legal affairs for the Animal Protection League of
New Jersey.

Before the annual hunt started in 2010, the bear population was
estimated by the state at 3,400. About 1,900 were killed over the course
of the five yearly hunts, held each December.The state said there were
2,500 bears prior to the December 2014 hunt, officials
said at the time.

But when the plan for future hunts was unveiled Tuesday, the population
estimate was revised to its highest total yet: anywhere from 3,500 to
4,000. State biologists said it was data collected during the December
hunt that showed an unexpected surge in the population.

“They have high reproductive rates,” said Tony McBride, a supervising
wildlife biologist with the Division. “It’s all habitat quality.”

Black bear litters are larger here than the average in other parts of
North America, the state scientists say. Females bears in New Jersey
produce three bears per litter — compared to one or two per litter in
the western United States, said McBride.

But five or six cubs have been counted in some New Jersey litters,
according to the new bear management plan. The Garden State has the
perfect mix of southern and northern forests that provide a variety of
acorns and other natural foods which lead to much higher reproductive
rates, said McBride.

But skepticism from the critics abounds. Animal-rights groups allege the
Division of Fish and Wildlife changes its estimates to suit its
hunter-first plans.

The latest population estimates are a way to drum up public support for
the hunt, they contend.

“Whenever it’s convenient for them, they say the bear population is
going up or going down,” said Lin. “Now that they want to expand the
hunt, they say they’re up.”

“It’s hard to know what to say,” added Susan Russell, the wildlife
policy director of the Animal Protection League. “The hunters wanted to
get bowhunting, and they got bowhunting. This is what they wanted — and
they’re going to get it.”

The public will have its say on the new hunt and management plan. The
DEP commissioner must approve the plan, it must be published in the New
Jersey Register, and the public will have 60 days to comment – including
a hearing. Bothwill be announced by the DEP

An NJ Advance Media analysis of statewide bear complaints conducted in
December showed that Category I incidents — the most-serious and aggressive incidents
— increased significantly after the 2013 hunt, as the population
approached pre-hunt levels, according to Department of Environmental
Protection statistics.Aggressive-bear complaints were initially pushed
down by the first hunts, but later made a resurgence.

Dave Chanda, the director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, told NJ
Advance Media that the approval of the new plan would be too late to
open for the October season this year.

Florida Reinstates Bear Hunting Season

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http://www.npr.org/2015/02/28/389516451/to-curb-bear-population-florida-reinstates-hunting-season

To Curb Bear Population, Florida Reinstates Hunting Season

February 28, 2015

For the first time in two decades, Florida officials have scheduled a bear hunting season. It’s a response to a rise in bear attacks — but it has some environmentalists upset.

Experts say there’s plenty of room for humans and black bears to co-exist, but the smell of food is pulling the animals out of the woods and into neighborhoods.

If you want to understand the situation, take a trip to Franklin County, in the pandhandle. A few months ago, a bear attacked a teenager there while she walked her dog near a convenience store.

 

Kaitlin Goode, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, explains that garbage — strewn through the woods and across the road at a recycling center for appliances — is part of the problem. She says bears can’t help but drag tasty things back into the woods.

“These communities are backed right up to the forest, and it’s just a bear pump,” Goode says. The bears are flourishing in the woods, she says, “and they smell this. They might be in the middle of the woods, but they can smell this.”

Bears are making a comeback in the panhandle — where it’s mostly forest — and in the rest of Florida. In 2002 when the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC, did its last population count, there were about 3,000 bears. Now they’re counting again.

Thomas Eason, the state director of Habitat Species Coordination at the FWC, says he expects the population to have grown significantly because of increased bear sightings.

“As you get more bears, particularly with more people, you start having more and more negative interactions,” he says. “And so, finding that balance point that we call cultural carrying capacity is important.”

To reduce human-bear conflicts, FWC wants new feeding rules and more bear-proof trash cans. Hunting is part of the plan, too.

The state hunt isn’t finalized and won’t be until the fall, but environmentalists are still upset. Kate MacFall of the Humane Society of the United States, says there’s no evidence a hunt will help.

“It’s a recreational activity that a small percentage of the population wants to do,” she says. “But in terms of decreasing human-bear conflicts, there is no science that supports that.”

MacFall says if wildlife officials want to reduce bear attacks, they need to focus on getting people to stop feeding bears — whether through intentional feeding or letting the animals go through the trash.

If none of these solutions work, the bears could be moved.

Caster is a 20-year-old black bear who lives at the Tallahassee Museum. During the fall, the bear needs to consume more than 15,000 calories daily. Mike Jones, an animal curator at the museum, says that drive for food is what landed Caster there.

“He started going to everybody’s houses and going in garages,” he says. “So the Fish and Wildlife Service relocated him and moved him about 150 miles away into a big swamp area.”

But Caster couldn’t stay away from people so officials moved him to a zoo.

He’s lucky. Last year, Florida Fish and Wildlife officials had to kill almost 50 bears that had started to associate humans with food.

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Montana Multiple Grizzly Bear-Killer Charged With “Unlawful Taking”

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Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Browning man accused of killing three grizzly bears
November 09, 2014 5:26 pm  •  TERENCE CORRIGAN Independent 

Everett Skunkcap, of Browning, showed no apparent remorse for allegedly shooting three grizzly bears Aug. 6, reportedly telling Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife investigators that last year he shot another grizzly bear and if “any grizzlies were on his property he would shoot them again,” according to the probable cause affidavit filed in the case Nov. 5. “Skunkcap was instructed to call the (Fish and Wildlife) office if there were bear management issues” but “Skunkcap responded that he would just shoot them anyway.”

Grizzly bears are a federally protected species, listed as threatened.

Investigators reported that one of the bears, a female, was approximately 17 years old and the other two were about a year and a half old.

Skunkcap took an investigator to the site where he allegedly shot the bears and said he shot the “mother grizzly” first and then shot one of the young bears. The third bear, he said, ran after he shot the first two but returned an hour later and “stood over the two dead grizzlies.” Skunkcap told the investigator that he “figured this grizzly was going to ‘raise hell’ later that night” so he “’might as well do away with it as well.”

Skunkcap told investigators he was alerted to the bears by his dogs at around 10 a.m. and when he spotted them they were walking in the direction of his three grandchildren. He said the bears were about 300 feet from the children. He said the bears were not running and his grandchildren ran into the house. “Skunkcap admitted that all the kids were in the house when he shot the third grizzly.”

Skunkcap reportedly asked if he would get the grizzlies back following the investigation as he wanted to “tan them and put them up on the wall … as a souvenir of what he did.”

Skunkcap was charged with three counts of unlawful taking of a threatened species, each count punishable by up to six months in prison and a maximum $25,000 fine.