Bear Hunter Shoots Hiker in Washington State

[Rick Dreher]

Too right, Roger. The shooter was 14, "supervised" by his 16YO brother. It's doubtful any state law was broken.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008094528_hunting06m.html

In California, hunting seasons are a crazy quilt of species, dates, zones, weapons of choice, etc. that makes it *very* challenging to figure out whether active hunting is allowed at a given place and date. Couple that with significant poaching and very limited F&G staffing, and it becomes even more…interesting in the back country.

A bit ironically, I find one of the better strategies for hiking during hunting season is to make a boatload of noise, which can drive game and hunters elsewhere. The inverse of stealth camping. That, and not traveling at dawn and dusk.

[Rick Dreher]

p.s. Here's an example season matrix, for deer only:

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/hunting/deer/2008tags/docs/2008APPROVEDDeerZoneSeasons-Quotas.pdf

Thank goodness for National Parks!

[Roger Caffin]

> The shooter was 14, "supervised" by his 16YO brother. It's doubtful any state law was broken.
The mind boggles!!!!!
BOTH would be illegal in Australia!
Criminally irresponsible **authorities**!

[David Olsen]

Try going out at dusk and see which colors disappear first.
Blue jeans are the first to go, even before black. Blaze
orange and white remain for a long time.

Red, White, and Blue are the colors to avoid during Turkey
season.

[David Olsen]

"40% to 60% of accidents were to someone wearing a blaze orange colour. So does this mean the blaze orange is at fault? Or can we simply say that too many idiots are allowed to go out with a gun to shoot at anything which moves?
"

And I bet all of them ate carrots at one time in their lives.

[Ashley Brown]

It's ridiculous that hiking and shooting is permitted in the same area. Doesn't matter what regulations, supervision requirements, education exists… if you allow hunting in areas where people are hiking eventually someone will make a mistake and someone will get killed. Hunters knowingly take a risk that there are other hunters about who might accidentally shoot them. I hope there are massive signs at all of the trailheads informing hikers that hunting season is on and people with guns are on the prowl! Personally, I wouldn't knowingly hike in an area where people are hunting.

[John Brochu]

>>> Personally, I wouldn't knowingly hike in an area where people are hunting.

I believe it's a really really tiny risk. The thing is, when an accident like this does happen, everybody hears about it.

[Denis Hazlewood]

My colors: bright red, bright yellow. Jackets, shirts, tent. I carry either my ID EVent jacket, or my red insulating jacket draped over my silver-grey pack. In hunting season I use a bright yellow hat. I also make a lot of noise, especially if I hear people. If I'm scaring the game away, so what? The hunters are scaring me, especially if that hunter is using his rifle scope to see just what kind of creature I am. I caught a hunter once, using his scope to scan a hillside around a lake where I was camped. He probably didn't think I was very friendly. I once drove a young boy and his father out of a closed area, telling them there was a warden a quarter mile behind me with a dog that tracked Hoppes #9. They dog trotted right over the ridge.

My 36 year old father had hunted since he was 10 and was killed in a hunting accident 13 days before my 5th birthday. Guns aren't toys for teenage boys.

[Scott Bentz]

I went to college in Utah. Being from So. California I wasn't brought up on hunting (not that there is anything wrong with it). However, when deer hunting season started I always wore my orange hat around town just in case. You never know.

Scott

[David Olsen]

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00044112.htm

Note, 17 million purchased hunting licenses at the time
of the study – 1995.

Be smart, but don't let worry keep you from stuff you like.

[Blue _]

An interesting link, David—and I think your advice to keep things in perspective is well directed. I don’t hunt, but I keep a calendar of local hunting-season dates by my desk. When appropriate I wear blaze orange and an assortment of other unnaturally gaudy colors, as well. I feel a bit silly, of course, like a circus performer who has lost his circus, but having been accidentally in someone’s line of fire once was one time too many: the sound of lead pellets rattling through the brush a few feet away quickly and permanently readjusted my priorities about appropriate outdoor fashion colors.

Overall, however, as an automobile driver and cyclist I am far more concerned about idiot drivers on the roadways than idiot hunters in the woods. In all cases, I try to find the most defensive posture that leaves me with the most freedom and, more importantly, pay attention to making sure that I don’t act like an idiot, myself. “There are some activities where error should not be considered an option or an excuse”—something I once overheard a surgeon say.

I am curious, though, to know why the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) is collecting information on “Hunting-Associated Injuries and Wearing ‘Hunter’ Orange Clothing.” Where’s the disease they are working to control or prevent? Seems as if they have adopted a rather broad definition of their mission.

[John S.]

Blue, that word PREVENTION is the answer.

[Jason Klass]

nm

[EndoftheTrail]

Jason is a wuss. :)

[Jason Klass]

Ben,
My sentiments EXACTLY!

[victoria maki]

i feel so sorry for both the hikers family and the boy who shot the hiker. the hikers family lost their dear one and the boy is going to have to live with his mistake for the rest of his life. i will not hike during deer season here in minnesota. i respect the rights of the hunters. even wearing blaze orange is not a guarantee that you will be seen…

[Russell Swanson]

In all my discussions with the many hunting enthusiasts I've talked to I have never managed to get a single one of them to admit that the real reason they hunt is because they like putting projectiles into living things until they stop living.

[Timothy Foutz]

"In all my discussions with the many hunting enthusiasts I've talked to I have never managed to get a single one of them to admit that the real reason they hunt is because they like putting projectiles into living things until they stop living."

Ok we like to kill stuff. Shoot those d–n critters as many times as possible. Then we skin them and make nice tasty steaks and stuff. MMMMMMM

I am a omniverous predator and so are you. Our canine teeth,our forward facing eyes and our GI tracks prove it. So unless you grow some new organs and turn into a deer or somthing you need to get over it and realize you are NOT evolved to eat plants. You evolved to kill animals and eat them just like tigers and lions and closer to our species bears and chimps. We are a predatory species of course we have the thrill of the kill. Our brains are made for it. Only PETA freaks don't seem to understand this.
So there you go I admit it killing animals is why we hunt. Happy. Oh and animals don't have rights. THEY ARE NOT HUMAN and only humans have rights.

[Dave T]

.

[Steve O]

Its real sad when something like this happens.

I'd also like to say that hunting is a great source of sustainable, local, and ethical meat (and for many, this takes precedence over the "sport" of it). Its too bad when people consume meat and/or dairy but look down on wild harvested meat. The life that a deer gets to live is much better than a cow or chicken in a feedlot. Who here has seen a dairy or meat CAFO (confined animal feeding operation)? They are disgusting, wasteful factories that treat animals like machines.

So to those people who eat conventionally produced cheese and ice cream (non-free range and non-organic), but look down on all hunters, think about the ethics…

Also, lets not forget the managment aspect of hunting. Many wildlife populations are "too large" and in those cases, hunting serves a purpose. For example, infectious diseases can become a problem within populations when their numbers explode. Or how about hunting invasive species like wild pig, that happen to ravage native landscapes in the US?

Oh, and look into bow hunting. It is next to impossible to mistake a target at 20 yards.

[Andrew Richardson]

Please, I beg of everyone, don't respond to "that" post. Just please, leave it alone. I am literally having to fight responding and the only thing helping me keep things to myself is thinking that is going to be ignored. So please, let's just leave it alone. Please…Don't let this thread turn into crap..

As far as this goes, I think that people "look down" on hunters because they picture the hunter that is disrespectful of life. This type of attitude is just very arrogant and reminiscent of the religious sentiment spread in the, I think, 15th century or so, where humans were seen as the center of the universe so we were all that mattered.

Fortunately this kind of deeply held belief was changed as time went on and people learned more about their environment, including outer space.

The bottom line is that, like everything in the world, some hunters give the sport a bad name, and others are just class acts that do a service that needs to be done. Whether you agree with the sport, or the thrill of the hunt, or anything like that, people have a right to hunt and as long as they do it respectfully, I see no problem. I don't want to do it, but I can see why they do.

[Timothy Foutz]

"foutz brings his garbage outta chaff…"
Really Dave? Garbage? Is there anything in my post that is untrue? Do you fish Dave? Do you love the thrill of hooking and reeling in a fish Dave? Hunting is the same thing!
I drive home everyday past about 50 deer. We have one deer hit per month on the road I live on. Just imagine if 5000 a year wern't killed in my county alone every year. Hunting is important to keeping animal populations in check. My point is that humans are a predatory species,our closest relatives are chimps. Guess what they don't really eat bananas in the wild. They eat as much meat as they can get their teeth into. They organize themselves in troops to hunt. Maybe some PETA members could go protect monkeys from chimp attacks, perhaps explain too the chimps that monkeys are people too. Oh the Alpha male chimp would probably mistake the emaciated vegan PETA members for some kind of monkey and then well..PETA snacks for all.
So take your shots Dave. I love a good fight.

[Timothy Foutz]

"Timothy, your post is very ignorant. First of all, if animals didn't fear humans, than they would have absolutely no incentive to attack and protect themselves against us. There is video from when men where building the oil pipeline across Alaska, the workers were shown holding squirrels, holding bear cubs, and, believe it or not, riding full grown bears.
Second of all, just because you fear something doesn't give you any right to take its life away"

Ok I am ignorant. Please go pet a Grizzley. I have a right to take the life of whatever I need to too survive, pal. Your problem, as with most d–n city types, is you have no idea what things are like in the country. You think food is made by magic at the supermarket. I grew up on a farm hunting,fishing and gardening. I have a garden,fishing rods, rifles and shotguns. I kill a deer or two per year and eat it all year long. I don't hunt bears and in fact I have one roaming on some land I own right now. I live and let live as long as animals are not a threat and I don't need them for food. I don't hunt for sport. I do fish for sport and I am sure you hate that, but I can live with it.
But if you really think animals in their natural state are so kind and play nice with each other then I think you need to find a Grizzley mother and hold her cub then pet her prove to us that it's true. Enjoy the short experiance…..

[Brian UL]

"Fortunately this kind of deeply held belief was changed as time went on and people learned more about their environment, including outer space."

Im not sure how early Renaissance man was disrespectful of life because he largely believed himself the center of creation? and since more people by far lived of the land then I would say that 15th century man could teach a thing or two to Suburban 21st century man.
I am aware of the "the Great chain of being" theory but I dont see that equating to being disrespectful of the rest of creation per se.
The 15th century also was about reclaiming western culture i.e. science, philosophy and Humanism-
The irony is that you seem to view history as a linear progression (bad-to-good) which is itself a belief from the religious establishment of the time! (classic western culture viewed history as a spiral)

That was my pointless post for the day.

[Andrew Richardson]

Hey Brian,

Those are really good points, and I have to say I agree. I guess I was just trying to attest to the fact that believing that you are superior just because you are human (or Christian in those days) leads to dsirespectful behavior (The Inquisition).

You are definitely right about the living off the land aspect and the respect that must have given them for their world around them. I was trying to draw the parallel between the way Christians treated others because of God and so forth to how people treat animals the way they do today because we are "superior" so we can.

So yeah, I really didn't make myself clear, and I still may not be! It was early and I was eating cereal, getting ready for work, and trying to wake up from my 4 hours of sleep (Radiohead concert last night!)

I don't think I see history as a linear prgoression though, and certainly not from bad to good! It's hard for me to put into words how I view the course of history, but ulitmately I think it's something like a treadmill…if that makes any sense.

Good points! Thanks for getting me thinking about what I wrote and opening my eyes to some things!

[Author]

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