Over the course of about 40 years of hunting and fishing, I still can't comprehend how utterly ignorant some people are around wildlife.
The stupid comes from doing things that defy common sense or defying specific laws or regulations. Here's a good example of the former: A black bear sow was killed and her cubs relocated after being fed by visitors at Grand Teton National Park.
On Thursday, Oct. 4, visitors in two separate vehicles along the Signal Mountain Road were seen feeding fruit to three black bears, the National Parks Service said in a statement.
“The bears, a sow and two cubs of the year, each received several food rewards during the incident and made contact with several vehicles along the road,” officials said.
“Feeding wildlife in a national park is a serious offense and presents severe risks to the animal and to humans,” Grand Teton National Park Deputy Superintendent Gopaul Noojibail said. “Human carelessness doesn’t just endanger humans, it can result in an animal’s death.”
Officials said once bears associate people with food, they can become aggressive in seeking additional food, especially when preparing to hibernate for the winter.
How many years have people been told to not feed wild animals? Decades? Yes, decades. It should be common sense to not feed bears. There's a reason wildlife officials issue those warnings, as cited above. Wild animals, especially those in protected settings such as national parks, become accustomed to the food and can get aggressive. And then bad things could happen.
The people who don't believe this live in fantasyland. They think national-park bears, bison or elk are like zoo animals and nothing will happen to them for getting too close. This is why morons walk up to a giant bull elk or try to get their kid as close as possible to a bison for a photo.
Unreal. Just unreal. I hope all of them get caught and prosecuted.
Poachers Suck, Too
The other example comes from the Alaska Daily News about boaters in a bay in Prince William Sound finding two black bear cubs floating with concrete-filled jugs tied to their necks.
The boaters noticed something in the shallow water, motored closer, and saw the cubs' hind legs and paws. Peter Montesano, a physician from Anchorage, and Paul Wunnicke told the ADN the discovery shocked them. They took photos to show state game wardens but did not bring in the bears, which were starting to decompose after being in the water.
"There is no question in my mind," Montesano said. "They were both tied in the same place with a cement weight (connected) to their necks. Is it mafia-like? I mean, how many people are thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge with a weight on their neck by accident?"
Who does something this awful? Was it a poacher who shot the sow and wanted to get rid of the cubs? Some sickos who shot the cubs and wanted to dispose of them?
Hopefully the Alaska game wardens can figure out what happened or get some tips from the public. Game wardens everywhere have incredibly tough jobs just with the small, vocal minority of public goobs who think they are bothersome. Add poachers into the mix doing terrible stuff and it only makes their jobs more difficult.
It really is mind-boggling sometimes why people just can't do the right things.
