Posted on 10/01/2013 1:13:03 PM PDT by george76
In his 63 years ranging cattle at Pine Butte Ranch in Wycliffe, Ray Van Steinburg has never had grizzly bears take down a cow.
That is, until earlier this month, when he and other ranch workers found the carcasses of two cows about 100 feet apart on the 15,000 hectare property. The cows weigh about 1,400 pounds each.
They set up a motion-detected camera at the site of one of the kills and caught amazing footage of not one but two grizzlies approaching the kill, feeding on it, and even wrestling with each other.
Van Steinburg said that while his 800 head of cattle are ranging, he doesn't know how many cows the grizzlies have taken. But he has observed cows who no longer have calves, and calves who no longer have mothers.
...
In his time on Pine Butte, Van Steinburg has seen the wildlife population grow from zero to what it is today. Last fall, Van Steinburg said there were around 3,700 elk on the property.
But since the grizzly kills, there have been no elk at Pine Butte Ranch
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytownsman.com ...
There have been some weird predator changes up here on the Range, george76. Coyotes have been hanging around longer and getting closer. There aren’t as many red tail hawks, but there are way more rough-legged hawks and golden eagles. They’re always around close. Daytime mountain lion sightings are more common, too. Maybe it was the drought. Not sure. And BTW, I’ve only seen elk herds that are much smaller than usual and haven’t seen them often. Antelope are more scattered and in smaller numbers, too—quite a few lone ones sighted.
The closing of the spring bear hunt season resulted in an explosion of higher numbers and more aggressive bears. Bears now think that humans are the easy source of food as there is no hunting going in the spring. [ Utes and others hunted year round ].
Second, the vacating of grazing allotments and new lion study areas [ no hunting allowed ] has destroyed deer, elk, antelope ... populations. Thus smaller herds and your lone antelope example.
Not a water problem. The drought hype [ like AGW ] is just another government program designed to raise our taxes & fees while turning citizens into slaves.
I live 100 miles NW of Wycliffe across the Purcells. There’s a grizzly population in the low hundreds in between us.
Folks around here love and respect the griz; one of my neighbours has grizzly bears feeding on spawning kokanee now right next to his garden - he has no problems with them. Last year at this time my wife and I were able to observe a sow and two platinum blond cubs feeding on huckleberries within a hundred feet of us for a couple of minutes.
I heart British Columbia!
But yeah, some bears you have to shoot.
bump for later
Do you do anything special with the heads, pour encourager les autres?
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