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Such garbage, these folks probably don’t even hunt

What's the point of the hunt - to satisfy folks thirst to kill wildlife or to control populations?

Do people eat bear? Perhaps it was for the meat. That's gotta be it, right?

Must be a population issue...

I hiked the PCT this past year and every town I went to spoke about how natural food resources for bears was incredibly low the past couple years due to a number of contributing factors such as wild fire burnout areas and drought. That same year we saw the rise of 'Hank the Tank' and his cohorts of 500lb bears raiding homes over the winter season instead of hibernating.

I'm in no way an expert and I trust the wildlife commission to get things right, but I would think by limiting their numbers there would be more food for the remaining bears who would stay in the woods rather than raid homes and garbage cans and risk being shot (although I think Hank got away).

On a tangent, just thinking about Hank and being a bit stoned right now.. that bear was a straight up gangster. He was huge! And whereas a lot of other bears went to ground and hibernated and got skinnier, he came out in the spring nice and fat.. probably strutting his stuff to all the lady bears. But hopefully his primal nature took control of him and he doesn't come around again this winter.

I doubt that you understand much about the culture and mindset of the hunting community. Eat bear, yes, Control populations, yes. Thirst to kill wildlife, this is where you go off the rails dude.

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You saying people don't shoot and kill wildlife for sport?

I come from a family of hunters. I planned to carry on with the tradition, but can't be fuckt to go out and shoot animals - for any reason, unless I have to for survival.

I thought we had too many black bears, I'm surprised

Ive hunted deer my whole life and can honestly say I hate the act killing them.

If I didnt though, theyd overpopulate and starve, cause ecological destruction.

Its a benefit that I can eat them, but I have never once felt joy at killing any animal, especially if it wasnt a perfectly placed shot. I think most people I hunt with probably feel the same way.

What is misleading about the “Washington wildlife commission” is they are not wildlife biologists or even have to use the science and studies provided by the Washington department of fish and wildlife, they’re appointed by the governor for a 6 year term. They’re politicians that will make policies they way they want to without listening to the biologists.

It sucks because soon we’ll end up in a situation like California who banned mountain lion hunting but now uses state taxes to pay hunters to cull the same number of mountain lions.

so we should kill them? We have too many humans, 8 billion, so should we kill some of those too??

This is only for the spring hunt. It’s a bad practice, and fall bear hunting still exists for recreational and management opportunities.

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