ANCHORAGE — A state wildlife biologist shot and killed two orphaned bear cubs after a resident killed the cubs’ mother about three weeks ago, leaving the young bears to fend for themselves.
Jessy Coltrane of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said that without the mother, the cubs would have eventually been killed by another bear or died of starvation.
Comments (6)
Add commentSee:www.bearstudy.org/websit
See:
www.bearstudy.org/website/images/stories/Publications/Aiding_the_Wild_Su...
Jessey was wrong, it is not true that it was necessary to kill these two cubs. The above link is a bear study on AIDING THE WILD SURVIVAL OF ORPHANED BEAR
CUBS, those two cubs had a real good chance to make it.
This is a tragedy and reflects the horrible attitude that our state has towards wildlife.
Cost?
Jumpstart,
At what cost and by whom. ADF&G is not a zoo nor a wildlife sanctuary. The fact of the matter is that what was done was the most humane option available. While yes, a facility accepting the cubs would have been prefered, none was found. Are you propsing another State department, say the Department of Wayward Animals perhaps? We could just cut some of that pesky Education money.
We should have put the bears
We should have put the bears into the military.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voytek
Jumpstart, I agree with you.
However, money is always at the forefront of every decision made by our government and those that follow the rules blindly. Most people see $$ signs, while we saw a chance to save those cubs. I agree, it was not necessary to kill those cubs, but sadly it was cheaper and less troublesome for ADF&G.
Jumpstart, Read your reference.
These cubs were orphaned mid june. Your link addresses fall orphans in areas where populations are low, or introducing them to mothers in the den. They had 3 weeks on their own. It would have been inhumane to allow them to continue to starve to death. Unless you are willing to take responsibility for them, you do not have enough information to challenge their decision.
Threatened, endangered, or low populated areas may justify taking the chance. In highly populated states like Alaska the competition would be a sure death sentence.
It is a difficult thing to put an animal down. Perhaps that is why it took 3 weeks to be convinced it was the best option available.
For public's sake it might
For the public's sake it might have been better for F&G to trap/tranquilize the animals and euthanize them later instead of blasting them with shotguns in a public area or someones back yard.
Something you may want to consider in the future perhaps ? I bet it wouldn't have made the media shine its light on the dept.
And not to mention much more humane.