Feds are @ it again...

[Vance in AK]

Do you remember the story some years back about a relocated, tagged bear that swam Turnigan Arm to get back home? They move!

Now there you go using observable facts as part of your argument. Is that fair? In honesty though I remembered it as a wolf, but my wife (What was her name?) will tell you that my memory is not exactly a national treasure...

 

[sayak]

Now there you go using observable facts as part of your argument. Is that fair? In honesty though I remembered it as a wolf, but my wife (What was her name?) will tell you that my memory is not exactly a national treasure...

Here you go (it was a blackie though... but if a blackie, I'm sure a brownie could do it):
http://peninsulaclarion.com/stories/031703/ala_031703ala004.shtml

 

[Amigo Will]

Critters will for sure swim long distance in hope of better land. I do believe bears closer to towns is because of food and lack of food in areas where they are less seen and believed to many. The coastal areas are the most inportant to the BB for gaining their winter weight. As the coast moves to more people you get more bear people interaction. It will be a hard task to keep people happy with bear numbers as the bear will always come to the coast come salmon times and moose numbers will always drop without proper forage.

 

[kasilofchrisn]

It isn't that the feds think the bear hunting is not sustainable. It is the fact that the state and feds have differing management strategies.
So the state wants to manage to a lower overall brown bear population and the feds want to manage for a higher overall brown bear population.
The state sees a lower bear population as good for other wildlife and good for human bear interactions. They also feel this number is sustainable given the latest scientific study that I refrenced earlier.That study doubled or tripled the old bear count numbers and did so in a manner that was much more reliable and scientific.
In years past using old bear count methods and numbers we only had a draw hunt for Brown bears and that hunt was often cancelled due to DLP shootings that equaled the number of brown bear draw tags issued. Possibly a good indicator of a healthy brown bear population that could withstand more hunting pressure.
So there really isn't enough recent data from the harvest numbers alone to say one way or another as to if this is sustainable.
But the latest study done in 2010 seems to show that they were managing using flawed data for many years. Data that indicated there were much lower numbers of bears than what there actually were.
When the new numbers were analyzed the state made more liberal bear seasons and limits based on the more accurate numbers of Peninsula Brown bears.
The feds decided that on the refuge they wanted higher Brown bear numbers than the state did so elected to shorten the season on the refuge which is the only area the USFWS has control over and one of the only ways they can control the bear population there.

 

[kasilofchrisn]

I remember about 10 years ago when the State opted to open small game hunting on Skilak loop to hunters with guns.
It even made it to print in the hunting regs right there in black and white.
The feds didn't like it so they pressured the state to change it.
I was working at a remote mine site. having brought along the hunting regs I realized they had opened this area.
When I got home on R&R me and a buddy went hunting birds out there. Hunting was phenominal. Well a few bow hunters told us it was indeed closed.
Of course we figured they didn't know it changed. Besides those signs had been up for years and years.
We did stop hunting and went home and I called ADF&G. Sure enough it was closed. But they had not issued an emergency order or in any other way officially notified the public of the closure after the regs went to print.
Especially since I was out of town working where I did not have access to local media sources for daily news.
Needless to say I was pissed. And there really was no justification for the closure. Bird numbers out that way were amazing at that time with only a few bowhunters harvesting them.
Now there are shotgun/rimfire small game zones out there but you had better take a surveyor out with you because it is only certain stretches of the road that open.

 

[sayak]

It isn't that the feds think the bear hunting is not sustainable. It is the fact that the state and feds have differing management strategies.
So the state wants to manage to a lower overall brown bear population and the feds want to manage for a higher overall brown bear population.
The state sees a lower bear population as good for other wildlife and good for human bear interactions. They also feel this number is sustainable given the latest scientific study that I refrenced earlier.That study doubled or tripled the old bear count numbers and did so in a manner that was much more reliable and scientific.
In years past using old bear count methods and numbers we only had a draw hunt for Brown bears and that hunt was often cancelled due to DLP shootings that equaled the number of brown bear draw tags issued.
So there really isn't enough recent data from the harvest numbers alone to say one way or another as to if this is sustainable.
But the latest study done in 2010 seems to show that they were managing using flawed data for many years. Data that indicated there were much lower numbers of bears than what there actusally were.
When the new numbers were analyzed the state made more liberal bear seasons and limits based on the more accurate numbers of Peninsula Brown bears.
The feds decided that on the refuge they wanted higher Brown bear numbers than the state did so elected to shorten the season on the refuge which is the only area the USFWS has control over and one of the only ways they can control the bear population there.

You are right: as I said waaaaayyyyy back in this thread, moose ain't as sexy as wolves and bears. When you try to bolster predator populations at the expense of prey animals like moose, sooner or later you end up with neither.

 

[Hoyt-Hunter]

You are right: as I said waaaaayyyyy back in this thread, moose ain't as sexy as wolves and bears. When you try to bolster predator populations at the expense of prey animals like moose, sooner or later you end up with neither.

Kinda like the bolstered two legged predator population that has doubled in the last twenty years has done to the prey animals. Much of it outside the law.


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[limon32]

I remember about 10 years ago when the State opted to open small game hunting on Skilak loop to hunters with guns.
It even made it to print in the hunting regs right there in black and white.
The feds didn't like it so they pressured the state to change it.
I was working at a remote mine site. having brought along the hunting regs I realized they had opened this area.
When I got home on R&R me and a buddy went hunting birds out there. Hunting was phenominal. Well a few bow hunters told us it was indeed closed.
Of course we figured they didn't know it changed. Besides those signs had been up for years and years.
We did stop hunting and went home and I called ADF&G. Sure enough it was closed. But they had not issued an emergency order or in any other way officially notified the public of the closure after the regs went to print.
Especially since I was out of town working where I did not have access to local media sources for daily news.
Needless to say I was pissed. And there really was no justification for the closure. Bird numbers out that way were amazing at that time with only a few bowhunters harvesting them.
Now there are shotgun/rimfire small game zones out there but you had better take a surveyor out with you because it is only certain stretches of the road that open.

They repeated that exercise last year with predator hunting. This time USFWS EO'd it a day or two before the season at least.


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[Vance in AK]

Here you go (it was a blackie though... but if a blackie, I'm sure a brownie could do it):
http://peninsulaclarion.com/stories/031703/ala_031703ala004.shtml

The incident i was thinking of was much longer ago. Maybe late 90s.

 

[iofthetaiga]

I do believe bears closer to towns is because of food and lack of food in areas where they are less seen and believed to many. The coastal areas are the most important to the BB for gaining their winter weight. As the coast moves to more people you get more bear people interaction. It will be a hard task to keep people happy with bear numbers as the bear will always come to the coast come salmon times and moose numbers will always drop without proper forage.

Pretty well sums it up. Alas, sage wisdom falls on deaf ears.

 

[.338 mag.]

I long ago came to the conclusion there is no sense in expecting the Fed's to perform in a competent manner on any issue. They are a monstrous tax funded impersonal bureaucracy that is controlled by the sitting president and his self serving appointed cronies. Expecting reasonable and competent decisions and actions from an unreasonable and incompetent entity always results in frustration and disappointment, at least for me. I am in favor of refuges that protect against permanent human structures for the good of wilderness areas. I am not in favor of restricting US citizens from hunting,fishing, camping and having extended stays in the wilderness. This whole country would be better off if more people spent more time i wild country.

 

[sayak]

I long ago came to the conclusion there is no sense in expecting the Fed's to perform in a competent manner on any issue. They are a monstrous tax funded impersonal bureaucracy that is controlled by the sitting president and his self serving appointed cronies. Expecting reasonable and competent decisions and actions from an unreasonable and incompetent entity always results in frustration and disappointment, at least for me. I am in favor of refuges that protect against permanent human structures for the good of wilderness areas. I am not in favor of restricting US citizens from hunting,fishing, camping and having extended stays in the wilderness. This whole country would be better off if more people spent more time i wild country.

As they say, "I'm grabbing some popcorn".

 

[Amigo Will]

If a little place like Wrangell can't make a third of the people happy how can we as a nation do it?

 

[stevelyn]

No surprise. The ferals have to be in a snit about something all the time.

 

[sayak]

No surprise. The ferals have to be in a snit about something all the time.

Ha ha! There should be no snit. The public pays them well and the resources do not belong to them personally. If indeed they are having snits, it would be along the order of spoiled professional athletes who make beaucoup amounts of money but still throw tantrums when they don't get their way.

 

[limon32]

Maybe I missed it, but did you guys notice the refuge actually issued the closure order, Sept 1 to May 15...

 

[sayak]

Maybe I missed it, but did you guys notice the refuge actually issued the closure order, Sept 1 to May 15...

Did you expect otherwise? See post #94.

 

[limon32]

Ha ha ha... Perhaps I'm just young enough to have a sliver of optimism left...


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[sayak]

Ha ha ha... Perhaps I'm just young enough to have a sliver of optimism left...


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Oh, I have a sliver of optimism too! My hope is that the American tax payer rebels and forces government to reduce to the bare essentials: basic infrastructure, limited government and common defense. The rest should be left to states to manage and fund. See my signature.

 

[tyrex13]

If the federal government would just go on sequester for the next two years...