Posted on 08/20/2002 3:47:58 AM PDT by ZULU
Edited on 07/06/2004 6:37:48 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Black bear kills baby girl at vacation colony in N.Y.
A black bear snatched a 5-month-old girl from a stroller at an upstate New York bungalow colony yesterday afternoon and killed the baby while trying to drag her back into the woods from which the animal had just emerged, authorities said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
If the NJ bears spill over into NY, NYers should threaten NJ with a lawsuit. Otherwise any attempts by NY to control the bear population will be undercut.
A baby's cry can bring in hawks, owls and coyotes. They focus only on the sound as a distressed animal and an easy meal.
Rabbit distress calls are used for hunting bears in New Mexico.
I see you have no solution.... let nature select? I live in NJ and folks in the Bambi crowd never seem to get Lyme or have a deer through the windshield of have their children murdered by Yogi.
This is not an emotional issue.
Control is the answer.
Hunting is the solution here.
Remember it's not an emotional issue.
Too bad for the baby right?
Hunters= Bad
That would take 140 years and delay the Black Bear Reparations Bill John Conyers is probably working on with the Congressional Black Caucus as we speak.
Cougars don't belong in such congested areas either.
I have never heard of anyone being killed by a coyote. There are NO records of human beings EVER being killed by North American wolves. Fatal wolf attacks have only occurred in Eurasia.
Overpopulation by humans and resultant degredation of the environment and destruction of species diversity is an entirely different issue from the existence of a menace and pest in a highly congested state like New Jersey.
Read the Man-Eaters of Kumoun, and old classic by a big game hunter named Corbett. Corbett was called in by the British government in the early 1900's to kill man-eating tigers in India. Some of these individual cats had killed 400 or 500 people before Corbett put an end to their careers. However, Corbett himslef said a man-eating tiger was an abberration. The vast majority of tigers keep a wide distance from themselves and people. Man-eating tigers were invariably animals wounded or ill and unable to make a normal kill on game and who accidently learned that unarmed people made an easy target, or the cubs of such tigers who were raised to accept human flesh as a normal dinner item.
People are potentially dangerous animals and most wildlife avoids them, or did so until recently when humans stopped carrying and readily using weapons.
Bears, on the other hand, regard any potential protein source a a possible food item. Bears are one of the few animals which will deliberately stalk, kill and eat a human being as food source, with no extenuating factors than to sate immediate hunger.
...where the bear population has skyrocketed and plans for a controversial statewide hunt were shelved in 2000.
Janine Motta, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance, called yesterday's death a tragedy, but said her group would continue to oppose a hunt. "A hunt will not stop human-bear encounters, our contention with the issue here in New Jersey has been and will always be that public education is paramount.
Plenty of idiocy to go around here. If an animal can eat it, it IS a food source and any "wildlife expert" should know that.
A soaring bear population will bring those bears into increasing contact with humans. Weak-kneed polliticians caved to pressures from PETA-style lobbyists to do away with the only proven method to control the population of animals who are dangerous to the human population. (Remember the California joggers killed by Mountain Lions?)
Finally, Ms. Motta who says that education is the answer and "A hunt will not stop human-bear encounters,"
Who should we have educated in this case, the infant or the bear?
The arguements for/against a hunt sound much like the death penalty debate. I would answer the against crowd in the same way, that a dead bear/criminal never hurt anyone.
Can you tell me what are the best areas to aim for to stop a bear in his/her tracks - from the front and from the side? (I don't care about the back - if its running away from me that's fine.)
After a week in the backcountry of Yellowstone a few years ago, I was hanging out talking to a ranger. He told me about people who smeared their children's faces with jelly, so they could capture a photo of a bear licking the child's face.
That said, I think there are two separate populations that visit parks and forests.
-The naive, seldom off-trail, polyester-wearing, RV driving slugs who are there for a Disney outdoor experience, with flushable toilets and a nice gift shop.
-Serious backcountry users.
By all means, keep the "Yogi and BooBoo" crowd where they are, in a herd waiting for Old Faithful, and listening to a ranger warn them about all the dangers out there off the trail. Open up the wilderness areas for those who can handle it. I've been in bear country many times, and I've never had a problem. I consider myself fortunate when I get to see a bear, but I always give them space, make lots of noise on the trail (bear bells, etc) and carry bear-sized pepper spray and/or a large caliber handgun.
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