Bear Photos (Ketchikan, Metlakatla, Angoon: to live in, groceries, horses)

[JavaPhil]

Meat eating in omnivores is not a specious argument. Omni vs carni is a matter of evolution. The front focusing eyes are the sign of a carnivore. True binocular vision. Ungulates and other grazing animals have their eyes placed on the sides of their heads to give them a broader range of vision (the better to see you, my dear!). Carnivores have eyes on the front of their heads in order to focus and develop a depth perception for the pounce reflex (not ponce, or prance for the effeminate). Man is not the fastest animal, but has one of the more efficient metabolisms for processing protein for stamina. Man can run for hours. These are the developments of a carnivore, but we adapted (like bears) to process all forms of food. The fact is that in the lower 48, bears are rare. Here in Alaska, around cities like Juneau and Anchorage, they are a nuisance and a danger. Thinning the population also allows Alaskans a better chance at the ungulates that we enjoy dining on so much. Bears might be noble creatures where you are, but here they have mauled 3 people in Anchorage last summer. I don't notice people from California saying much when they gun down rare mountain lions when they happen to savage someone in their area, but shoot a bear in Alaska, by God, and you create a national sensation.

[Captain Crunch]

There ain't a reason I can think of to eat bear meat.... they make good rugs and standing mounts, nothing more

Consider some of the things they eat for example....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/bearpics.jpg (broken link)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/bearpics2.jpg (broken link)

Some guys just run 'em down....I kinda prefer a large caliber, and back up

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/grizzlyroadkill-9.jpg (broken link)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/grizzlyroadkill-3.jpg (broken link)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/grizzlyroadkill-2.jpg (broken link)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/grizzlyroadkill-5.jpg (broken link)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/grizzlyroadkill-8.jpg (broken link)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/grizzlyroadkill-7.jpg (broken link)

[Captain Crunch]

The center guy here...I have him on loan to Alaska Airlines

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/alaskan/bears5.jpg (broken link)

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Captain Crunch

The center guy here...I have him on loan to Alaska Airlines

Very cool photos guy!

I assume the top photos are where the one bear was giving CPR to the second bear to help him out!

[notreesininceland]

Originally Posted by JavaPhil

Meat eating in omnivores is not a specious argument.

I was referring to your citing dentition as one of your basis factors for consuming flesh. As for the other items you mention, as I said earlier, humans possess a superior brain to supersede their elemental impulses. This is what makes humans human.

The fact is that in the lower 48, bears are rare.

At the present time, yes. In times past, they were plentiful.

Bears might be noble creatures where you are, but here they have mauled 3 people in Anchorage last summer.

I do not recall very many people here in California awarding the mantle of nobility to the bear. I must not be meeting the Californians you have obviously :-)

I don't notice people from California saying much when they gun down rare mountain lions when they happen to savage someone in their area, but shoot a bear in Alaska, by God, and you create a national sensation.

I don't know what relevance this has to the discussion at hand, but you are right. Hypocrites, I am pleased to educate you, are not solely Alaska's preserve. There are many outside Alaska, too :-)

[aurorawatcher]

Great Shots CC!! Those are some great mounts.

[Rance]

The guy on the left in the first picture looks familiar. I can't really see his face enough. Is that Jim York?

[starlite9]

Here is a new bear story at Bettles, the bears are suppose to be taking a few month nap, but there seems to be some that are not getting their beauty sleep....



newsminer.com • Winter grizzly bears keep Alaska village on edge

Winter grizzly bears keep Alaska village on edge

By Tim Mowry
Originally published Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 1:49 p.m.
Updated Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 11:58 a.m.


FAIRBANKS — Last year, it was wolves that tormented residents in the small Brooks Range village of Bettles.
This year, it’s grizzly bears.

A grizzly bear that showed up for Thanksgiving dinner in the Bush village 180 miles north of Fairbanks on Thursday was shot by a local hunter as it was rummaging through an empty cabin looking for food.

Gary Hanchett shot the bear just after noon Thanksgiving Day after getting a call from another villager.

The bear, an old boar that Hanchett estimated at 7 feet tall and 350 pounds, had been spotted in the village several times in the last month and a half.

“People knew I was after him; I had the only bear tag in town,” said Hanchett, a 63-year-old observer for the National Weather Service. “I went down there, and sure enough, he was in this cabin making himself at home, tearing things apart.”

A couple with four children had moved out of the cabin for the winter about a month ago, said Hanchett, who shot the bear through a window.
“He ended up on the wrong end of a 270-grain bullet from a .375-caliber H&H,” Hanchett said with a chuckle.

Another grizzly believed to be bigger than the one Han**** shot was reportedly seen on a snowmachine trail a few miles south of town on Monday, Bettles Lodge manager Jamie Klaes said. Two passengers on a plane from Wright Air Service spotted the bear as the plane took off from the airport, she said. Residents in the village also have reported seeing tracks of a second bear.

“Last year, we had to worry about wolves, and this year, we’ve got to worry about grizzly bears,” Klaes said, referring to a pack of wolves that came into the village in February and killed two sled dogs in a local musher’s dog lot.

The shooting of one grizzly and sighting of another has many of the town’s roughly 50 residents stirred up, Hanchett said.
“There’s ‘grizzly bearitis’ going around,” he said.

The bear broke into two other empty cabins in town, one of which belonged to an attorney who lives in Minnesota, Hanchett said.
“It was a brand-new cabin, and he tore it to smithereens,” Hanchett said. “He broke the windows and doors, and then he went down the road to another cabin and tore it apart.

“He was getting to be a regular nusiance, and we figured sooner or later he was going to be a problem when somebody ran into him close up,” Hanchett said.

Wildlife biologist Dick Shideler at the Department of Fish and Game, who studies grizzly bears on the North Slope, said he was surprised to hear grizzlies were still out in the Bettles area. Most bears on the North Slope went into hibernation two weeks earlier than normal this year, he said.
“It’s exceptionally late” for a bear to be out, he said.

The only reason a bear wouldn’t be in a den by now is because it has a food source nearby, such as a moose kill or spawning salmon, or it didn’t get enough food to eat this fall.

“It’s all related to food,” Shideler said. “If they’ve got a definite food source, they’ll stay out.”

“Sometimes if they aren’t fat enough, they’ll stay out longer, too,” he said.

Shooting a grizzly bear wasn’t exactly the way Hanchett planned to spend Thanksgiving Day, but it ended a month-plus pursuit. The grizzly first showed up Oct. 16, he said.

“I saw him twice in one day and had no shot,” Hanchett said. “The next day, saw him again and no shot. It was one of those Elmer Fudd deals, ‘where’d he go, where’d he go?’”

Hanchett followed the bear’s tracks on several occasions trying to track him down.

“He’d come back into town and scare the bejesus out of people and take off again to Old Bettles,” Hanchett said, referring to a smattering of deserted cabins a few miles from town. “I could see where he had gone into every cabin looking for food.”

Based on the condition of its teeth, the bear was an old boar, Hanchett said.

“His teeth were worn below the gums,” he said. “He had very, very little fat.”

The bear also appeared to have been shot in the ankle at some point, probably in the fall, Hanchett said. There was a “football-sized abscess” on the joint and the ankle bone was shattered.

“There were probably near 100 pieces of small bone in there,” he said. “It had healed on the outside but not on the inside.

“This bear was in his last year of life,” he said.

That’s probably why the bear was looking for a free meal on Thanksgiving, Hanchett said.

“I’m sure if he had not been injured he would have stayed away from town,” he said.

Hanchett, a part-time trapper, said he took a break from skinning the bear to enjoy a “grand” Thanksgiving dinner. The hide was in good shape, and he plans to have a rug made out of it. He said he will use the bear’s carcass for trap bait.

“He’s going to be used for a wolf set now,” Hanchett said.

[Rance]

Originally Posted by 60-minutes-II

And trust me I love meat, my favorite meat is still beef, pig then nothing after that. The other sort of meats rarely taste as good as beef or pig.

I cannot believe you would kill and eat me! That makes me...upset!

[60-minutes-II]

Originally Posted by notreesininceland

This is a specious argument. The human organism, above all, is blessed with a powerful and highly evolved brain. The deepest foundations of our ethics lie in the control of our elemental instincts. To take your own example of grass - yes, you don't have the physiology of a cow but then you also have the ability to cook grass. The central arguments for vegetarianism have less to do with human biology (although now we know that read meat is not good for you) and more to do with belief systems (which may have certain rationale) or a way of life. I grew up in a society where the vegetarian ethos is pervasive and strong EVEN among those, like me, who occasionally eat meat. I find some of the new-age American vegetarian converts to be tight-assed self-righteous dicks.

Yeah, most people are not that good at controling their elemental instincts. never have been