Grizzly shooter garners support

Post Reply New Topic

COEUR d'ALENE - A man charged with unlawfully shooting and killing a grizzly bear had so many supporters at his arraignment Tuesday in federal court that the judge had to move the hearing to a larger courtroom.

Even there, every seat was taken as his family, friends and neighbors, young and old, squeezed in. Jeremy M. Hill, 33, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to killing the animal with a rifle on his 20-acre property near Porthill, Idaho, at the Canadian border. He lives five miles from the closest grizzly bear recovery zone.

http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_65972651-9003-5b14-b4e6-730e29ff6b8a.html

What a weird story. I can't imagine why they even brought him up on charges. It sucks for the bears, but it would have been worse for them if they had hurt one of his kids. I should never read the comments on these stories. Most wild animals have the good sense to avoid situations like that one, and I have to wonder about those who do not.

grizzley bears are generally harmless towards humans, if you are attacked by one it's probably because it's desperate and hungry

But I sympatise with the man too, he probably doesn't know this.

Because of the weird weather we're having the food the bears usually eat is just now becoming available. We've had more bear incidents in my area and I would imagine all up and down the Rockies.

It does not matter how many "supporters" he has. What matters is whether or not he broke the law. It is illegal to kill Grizzlies unless you are being threatened by them. Who wants to bet that this guy was either (a) harrassing the bear or had come too close to cubs, or (b) wanted to slaughter the animal just to put its head on his wall, and figured he could get away with it?

Isn't it ironic that conservatives are so concerned with "law and order" until it happens to be a law they want to break?

He couldn't let bears kill his livestock, he couldn't have them around his kids he wasn't harassing it (anyone who lives in the area for any length of time or has outdoors experience knows that harassing a mama grizzly with cubs is a good way to earn a Darwin award). He made no attempt to collect any meat or trophy from it, but reported the encounter to law enforcement. If it had been black bears, the use of deadly force might not have been necessary. My dad and a guy he was with once shot a black bear in the ass with bird shot. It didn't penetrate it's fur but it sent it running. Trying that with a grizzly would backfire on you. There's not any real good options for dealing with grizzlies in a situation like that without somebody's blood being shed.

Knee jerk responses from liberals don't make us look good either. As much as I'd like to say that anyone with six kids is a moron, it would be pointless. I couldn't let a bear eat my kids show pigs if I had or wanted kids... or show pigs.

I find it interesting that Liberals value a bear, over the lives of human children and their pets.

There is something called self-defense, as much as liberals seem to not understand the concept.

Congratulations on your 666th post!

It seemed he killed the bear in self-defense. It is not against the law if it is in self-defense. It is sad to see an animal being killed that way but bears can be highly aggressive and stubborn when it comes to people. And I am an animal lover. But I am going to give the benefit of the doubt.

Hey everyone let's stand around in a circle, hold hands with Grizzlies and sing Kumbaya. These furry little animals only want affection, so this knuckle dragging savage must've went out of his way to kill one for the hell of it .

The Grizzlies were on his 20 acre property for God's sakes so maybe you should simmer down with the smug and presumptuous crap. This could constitute it being a threat in the eyes of the law so stay in your lane before you make ret*d accusations of hypocrisy or unfounded assumptions about the dude's motives.

Isn't it ironic that self-proclaiming "open-minded" liberals assume someone that used a rifle and lives 90 miles from a starbucks is a "conservative"! !! !!

It's called arrogance........

Its about intent. Who was gunnng for whom- bear or man?

Without knowing the details it would seem that the fact that the bear was on his 20 acre property ( about the size of a square five city blocks to a side- tiny by Idaho standards) shows that the Bear was the intruder and that the man wasnt gunning for a bear trophy but was defending his hearth.

Reminds me of another case you all might want to chew on.
In Canada its also illeagle to kill Grizzlies, but its leagle to hunt polar bears for sport.

A few years ago a canadian hunter booked a trip to an island in the arctic ocean to hunt polar bears. And he succeeded in shooting and killing a big white bear on the tundra. But things got complicated because of the odd racially mixed features of the bagged bear. The government officially declared the bear to be a grizzly and then fined him for illeagly hunting grizzly.

The bear appeared to most to be a hybrid, and later DNA tests confirmed that the dead bear was a naturally occuring polar-grizzly hybrid.

Grizzlies normally live south of the tundra in the forests of mainland canada.
Polar bears live north of the tree line on the mainland tundra, on the sea ice and on the barren islands of the the canadian artic seas.
The guy goes to where no one would expect to find a grizzly- and to a place where you WOULD expect polar bears. He was obviously gunning for polar bears. And he shoots a racially ambigous bear that looks from a distance to be a polar bear.

So it appears to me that his intent was to follow the law, not to break it.
So it seems unfair to me to prosecute the guy.

And the irony is that normally I would have less sympathy for this guy than for the idaho hunter. This second hunter spent 40 thousand dollars to book the trip (complete with hunting guides who pointed him to the bear in question- maybe he could sue the hunting guide company) to shoot bear for sport. The Idaho guy wasnt a rich sportsmen but some small rancher defending himself.

If you can afford 40K just to shoot an animal, you can afford 1k for a fine (which probably goes to some kind of wildlife management fund in the canadian govt.- so its like giving to a charity- a charity that isnt even charity for this guy because it maintains the wildlife he likes to shoot).

So though I wouldnt normally identify with a rich guy who shoots polar bears for sport I have to admit that it is kinda unfair for the government to come down on him because its kinda obvious that his intent was to kill a legal species of bear not to kill an illeagle species of bear.

You need to be careful not to interject political beliefs into a situation where politics aren't relevant. Like natural phenomena, for instance.

Nature doesn't care about your politics. This bear is indifferent to your stand on gun control or whatever. All else being equal, griz are shy and elusive creatures. They don't make trouble if they don't have to. For that matter, they try their level best to be invisible. There are sections of Colorado where good-sized griz populations lived for decades and no one even knew they were there.

As such, I am extremely skeptical when someone claims "self-defense" when shooting a griz. I have encountered these animals in person many times over the last 30 or 40 years, and I have yet to have one of them cause me any trouble, primarily because I had enough sense to keep my distance and not provoke them. It is extremely unusual for griz to bother people who are not bothering them. Has it ever happened in the history of the world? Of course it has. But it's very unusual, and out-of-character for the bears.

I see people make silly statements in this thread based on politics and not on an understanding of the natural phenomena involved. That's a mistake.

That is not a predictable assessment to make about them. Having a mother with cubs or attacking farm animals are both causes for alarm, and both those happened. Since bears remember food sources, they were going to be a problem again.

It is predictable. I point out again that griz are extremely shy and solitary. In contrast to certain other predators like black bears or coyotes, they do not habituate well with human civilization, and it is very unusual to encounter them other than in remote wilderness situations. You do not find YouTube videos of them wandering into downtown shops. You do not see them at campground garbage cans except in extremely isolated cases.

This is the reason for my skepticism about these claims of "self-defense". It is simply outside the normal range of griz behavior to threaten humans unless the bear felt threatened or harassed by the humans.

I'm not saying that it cannot happen. I'm saying that it's extremely unlikely, and I'm skeptical. Every year, thousands of hikers enter griz country in Montana and Wyoming, or in Canada, and never see a bear. Or if they do, they have no problem with the animal at all. They keep their distance, they go their own way, the bear goes his.

Perhaps this fellow is different. But I have my doubts. Anyone can claim "self-defense" when talking about such a large and fearsome creature, and we'll never know exactly what happened during the interaction.