Bear Hunter Shoots Hiker in Washington State

Andrew,
Dont mind me. I just got home from work and history is a little hobby of mine. Im no expert though, I was just bored.
Dont take it personally. I know what you are saying.

Quote
"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."

Timothy, I most respectfully disagree with you on that. We live in a "civilized" society and civilization means that we should treat other creatures in a humane manner. In other words, animals have a right to be treated as humanely as we expect to be treated ourselves. The fact that a lot of animals are not treated humanely doesn't mean that they shouldn't be, it just means that some (many?) of us are not as civilized as we claim to be.

In case you are curious, I hunt and fish occasionally, I live in a rural area, my career was in natural resources and I enjoy eating meat as much as anyone. But, I also don't believe that those living in the "country" have a monopoly on knowing how to hunt or otherwise conduct themselves in the wild. I do happen to believe that hunting and the slaughter of animals can be, and should be, done humanely.

You can define humane any way you want; but to me, it is dealing with animals in a way that causes them relatively little pain or fear.

Hey, I guess I wasn't casting a wide enough net in my aforementioned discussions- one post and I've found someone who admits to getting a kick out of killing things!

I will let you know that your arguments to support your obvious enjoyment do nothing to help me understand the satisfaction you derive from extinguishing life.

You sound like a reasonably intelligent fellow so I'm sure it won't come as a surprise when I point out that neither being anatomically equipped for eating meat nor making our roads safe for drivers (among other things you mention) do much, if indeed anything, to explain a predilection for sadism.

As for hunters doing their deed to obtain meat? My experience is typically one of seeing camouflage- and blaze orange-clad fellows piling out of expensive pickup trucks, hauling trailers packed with thousands of dollars worth of hunting gear and expensive atvs, setting about the business of finding their much-needed protein. Every time I see this spectacle, I can't help but think about how many quality steaks the money spent on all that gear would purchase, at any one of the dozens of supermarkets they drove past to get to their hunting spot.

Although the thread seems to have wandered into a referedum on hunting, the original story continues.

The county is considering prosecuting the shooter for manslaughter in juvenile court, while the state is looking at overhauling its hunting regulations. Some interesting, and startling facts have come to light.

* The 14-year old shooter took his hunting safety course when he was 9. Under current state law, 14-YOs who have completed a safety course can hunt w/o adult supervision.
* Washington state has issued 5,200 big game licenses so far this year to hunters 15 years old and younger, with fall hunting season still ahead.
* Of those 5,200, more than 600 went to those 10 and younger and 50 to those 8 and younger.

What could possibly go wrong?

Rick, thanks for getting this back on track. My primary reaction to this event was perplexity about the laws that regulate minors' behavior: 21 to drink, 18 to vote and join the military, 16 to drive a killing machine, apparently any age to carry a killing machine after a class. I assume these age limits are set up to ensure that children mature to some level of responsibility. I don't see any consistency here.

Sorry to contribute to major thread drift, guys. My bad!

While I would readily refer to cars and guns as tools, as opposed to killing machines, I would agree with everyone in regards to concerns about the legal age to hunt in certain areas. I know some fairly mature 14 year olds but none that I would say are mature enough to trust completely, alone in the field with a firearm.

Ironically, in that "Virginia Study" I mentioned earlier, the biggest group of hunters screwing up was in the 25-39 year age range. Hardly children, though I totally agree that allowing children to hunt on public lands is asking for disaster. Maturity is not something you can legislate and just say "a 16 year old is adult enough to hunt safely", so the emphasis really needs to be on education. Education needs to be thorough and lengthy so good practices can become natural habits well before a hunter (of any age) is let loose in the woods. I believe this was the model used in Germany to get a hunting licence.

edited: nm

Wearing Nato Blue in Alaska may get you shot! I have hunted a lot in many different conditions and the orange is excellent. I took that NRA safety course when I was 12, it is outstanding I bet 50% of gun accidents wouldn't happen if more kids took that course. Apparently, the instructor failed to vet this kid out, part of that course is to fail the risky kids and prevent them from hunting. Parent and NRA instructor have a lot of responsibility in this tragedy. Terrible tragedy very sorry to hear about this.

"Every time I see this spectacle, I can't help but think about how many quality steaks the money spent on all that gear would purchase…"

Wow. Have you ever hunted? I haven't gone hunting in well over a decade but I am, obviously, pro-hunting. And I'm not sure if you understand just how meat is on an elk. And imagine how many books of Yellowstone photographs you could have bought for all the money you spend on hiking equipment!

And any non-vegetarian automatically loses the "just buy a steak" argument. If you are a vegetarian (and you might be) I will take you much more seriously. At least I would understand where you're coming from. But if you aren't a vegetarian then I really don't track you.

If someone eats meat and enjoys hunting, there is no moral reason he shouldn't hunt. The cows that non-hunting non-vegetarians eat suffer a lot more than any elk that gets shot. I mean, imagine being corralled outside a slaughterhouse that smells of the recent deaths of other cows, then forced through a chute as you hear the screams of your fellow cows, etc.

Essentially EVERY elk dies of illness, starvation, or predation. I propose that the latter is a better death than either of the former, especially if it is a (usually) swift death from a bullet. And since we have eradicated the natural predators of many species we are somewhat obligated to control their populations so that they don't die of mass starvation. (As happens periodically in suburban areas that ban hunting only to reinstate it when emaciated white-tails start eating their flower gardens.)

Timothy's abrasive comments are unfortunate, since he was obviously just trying to annoy in turn someone who annoyed him, but the root of his sentiment isn't without merit. Russell was, after all, goading all hunters with his comments, so he can't really complain about the response that he got.

For instance, the proposition that animals have the same rights as humans is outlandish. The "a human is a cow is a mouse" doctrine espoused by people like PETA is so ludicrous as to approach farce. Stop breathing! You're slaughtering millions of our brother microbes! That said, I see no reason to needlessly cause animals to suffer. Those jacka$$es that get off on torturing cats need the stuffing beaten out of them, for one example. (One of the biggest indicators of sociopathy is torturing animals as a child.)

Also, I will support Timothy's position that most (not all) opposition to hunting comes from urbanized populations. Likewise, most (not all) rural people I have ever met support hunting. It is easy to misunderstand something that you are ignorant about. The stereotype that is propagated in urban centers is of the hunter as a beer-swilling redneck who shoots at anything that moves. Surely you can understand why this upsets the vast majority of responsible hunters?

Timothy and Ted Nugent aside, most hunters don't simply enjoy killing things. Rather, they enjoy "hunting" things which, almost of necessity, includes killing things. There are exceptions: a fisherman is a hunter of sorts, who has the option to catch and release. There are people who "hunt" with cameras. Humans are predatory. Make what denials you like about how the arrangement of our teeth or orbits doesn't matter- you cannot deny that humans are predatory. It should be easy to understand why some people love to hunt. I do have problems with people who don't eat what they kill, though, and I'm not enthusiastic about hunting predators, either, though I acknowledge that it is sometimes necessary in the context of population management. I have moral issues with hunting ranches where you can pay to have some poor critter released within rifle range of you. If you can afford that, then you can afford the outfitter in Colorado or Montana and actually HUNT.

All of that said, I do wonder about age limits. Hell, I have met ADULTS that I didn't want to see carrying loaded rifles, let alone adolescents. I'm sure that we all have. The child in question in this incident probably committed manslaughter, and needs to be treated as if he did. No argument. (Just like a reckless driver who kills someone needs to be prosecuted.) I don't agree that he needs to be prosecuted as an adult, but he did commit manslaughter. Possession of a hunting license does not relieve you of liability, just as possession of a driving license doesn't. So, how do we decide who gets to hunt?

Age limits are about the only reasonable option that we have, and they vary by state quite a bit. Unfortunately we don't have the option of evaluating every prospective hunter individually, and tailoring his hunting privileges to suit his intelligence and responsibility. Thus, we are left with age limits. Young males, as a group, do a lot of dumb, irresponsible things. Letting someone that isn't old enough to drive hunt without adult supervision is farce. But even that is no guarantee- this kid had an adult with him, right? Personally, I'd like to see a greater education requirement, too. But I DON'T think that we need to use the German model, where getting a hunting license is so tedious and expensive that only the wealthy or obsessed can get them.

Yes, there will always be hunting accidents. There are also always going to be traffic accidents, and kiddie-pool accidents, and spoon accidents. I don't pass every day in rigid fear of dying in a traffic accident, and no-one should seriously worry about hiking in hunting areas or consciously avoid hiking in hunting season. That's just as silly. I would be more inclined to return to prohibition (to reduce traffic accidents) than to outlaw hunting.

Dean please call me Tim. Thanks.
Would I ever try to annoy an idiot? Nah!! Not me.:)
The point of this post, which I do believe a few of you refuse to even name, was that of course predatory animals enjoy killing their food. Why wouldn't they? The the kill stimulates pleasure centers in the brains of all predatory animals. Why would it not? The kill means they eat and any offspring they may have get to eat as well. Evolution/survival of the fittest or whatever you want to call it. Do any of you cat owners out there really think your cat doesn't enjoy killing?
How many of you knew that chimps organized themselves into hunter/gather troops to hunt. How many of you know that chimps use weapons like spears,rocks and clubs to hunt? They make the spears by rubbing one end on a rock or with their teeth. How many of you thought chimps were cute little critters who did cool tricks for treats. In the wild they show us more about how our ancestors lived than any other animal. They are stone killers.
I would love to see the results of an f MRI done on a hunter during the killing process. I have no idea how this could be done but it would be very informative.
How is all of this related to backpacking? I got into lightweight backpacking so I could carry more fishing gear on trips. I needed a way to get rid of as much weight as I could so my research led me to this site. I also do some hiking but that is not my primary interest. More a means to an end. I find fishing to be much more rewarding than hunting. I throw most of what I catch back so they can live to bite another day. I don't really hunt that much because I can just sit on my deck and shoot a couple of deer per year. I also generally don't like to get up at 3 am so I can freeze to death in the rain. That is most of what I have found dear hunting to be over the years. Well that and drinking beer with the hunting buddies. That's what my brothers do every year. I would rather spend my October and November mornings in a nice warm bed. Fishing on a nice May afternoon is more for me. But to each his own.
Oh and Dean I do not belive that I said that I enjoyed killing. I don't even keep most of the fish I catch and I do of course make dinner from the few I do keep. I enjoy the fake thrill of the kill from fishing.

Putting aside any moral judgement about the rights of animals or whether hunting is a right or not (you can argue till the end of time and never reach a consensus) I will say this. That woman should in NO WAY have EVER had ANY reason to fear for her life, NONE! There are no arguments in the world that can justify her death, not even talk about there always being hunting accidents. None of any of this talk here is going to give her back her life or ease the pain and fury that her family and friends must now endure. There should have been NO POSSIBILITY of her getting killed, by anyone. THAT is what is tragic and of utmost importance here, not all this other talk. I don't care how jealous people feel about their pastimes and toys, as long as there is even the slightest possibility of someone getting killed then there has to be some very serious and heavy-handed preventive measures taken to ensure that it can't happen. That includes completely getting rid of hunting, if necessary. Her life was more important than any hunter's claim to his or her right to hunt. THAT is why Germany and Japan are so harsh about getting hunting licenses… and why such accidents are unheard of in Germany and Japan.

THIS IS GOING OFF TRACK ONCE AGAIN. IF THOSE INTERESTED IN A PISSING MATCH ABOUT THE ETHICS OF KILLING ANIMALS, THEN START ANOTHER POST.

NOW, back to the topic.

Amazing that kids as young as 8 years old can hunt! At 8, I could hardly handle a baseball bat and swing it. How do you expect a kid that young to have the right frame of mind to use a gun. It is a tragedy that someone was killed. The kid that pulled the trigger is going to have to live with this the rest of his life. You know, you can't drive until you are 16, cannot vote until you are 18, and cannot drink until you are 21. Hmmmmmm………….

Carefull about what you would deny others, your sport might
be in the spotlight next. Hikers die too, sometimes causing
other deaths to searchers, pilots etc.

Only the elite get to participate in shooting sports in Japan
and Germany.

Carefull about what you would deny others, your sport might
be in the spotlight next. Hikers die too, sometimes causing
other deaths to searchers, pilots etc.

Man, did you even bother to read what I wrote, or do you just like contradicting others to create controversy? I was talking about prevention, about that woman not having had to worry about getting shot and that boy not doing something he was not trained properly to do. I said nothing about denying anyone anything, unless it put someone at risk of losing their life. There should have been no possibility whatsoever that the boy didn't know what he was doing. There should have been stringent tests to make sure and document that he knew what he was doing. And that includes him knowing all there is to know about handling a gun so that he himself doesn't accidently kill himself. Why even argue about this? Is the woman's death so trivial that the rights of hunters becomes a bigger issue than the fact that she was killed? It shouldn't have happened. Period. Now it's time to get serious about finding a way that it never happens again.

Only the elite get to participate in shooting sports in Japan
and Germany.

Ah, excuse me, what are you going on about? That is absolutely not true. Please get your facts straight before making a statement like that to someone who actually lives in these places (I am a German-American living in Japan who partly grew up in the States and partly in Japan and partly Germany). First off, my German grandfather was a hunter and he was a plain old assembly-line factory worker. I have many just-your-average-person friends and acquaintances who are hunters in Japan and Germany and quite a number of other countries in Europe (quite a lot of whom I have met and gotten to know while walking in all these countries). Hunting is a very old and revered tradition in Germany (going back to before the US was even a country) and is very much a part of every day life there. Every weekend you can see average people gathered in the countryside for their hunting clubs. While hunting is less popular here in Japan simply because the Japanese have always fished a lot more, and hunting was not very much a part of the activities that the ruling class engaged in (besides the powerful Buddhist sects in the cities forbidding the eating of meat), nevertheless it has always been for thousands of years and is still today a very common activity among people who live in the rural mountain communities, people who are mainly farmers, mainly hunting sika deer, serows, Asiatic black bears, and wild boar. A friend here in Japan has a father-in-law who is a hunter and he's a carpenter. I don't know how many elite hunting organizations there are in Germany and Japan (just as there are in the States), but I have never met an elite hunter anywhere, BUT in the States (up in Maine). Even most of the Japanese who go abroad to hunt on average are office workers with a penchant for guns.

My point being, that all these other countries have very carefully considered the consequences of hunting and have long experience with the dangers of guns and other weapons (carrying swords was outlawed in Japan at the turn of the 19th century for the very same reasons). They don't prohibit hunting, but make d–n sure that safety is foremost.

"as long as there is even the slightest possibility of someone getting killed then there has to be some very serious and heavy-handed preventive measures taken to ensure that it can't happen. That includes completely getting rid of —,"

Did you even read what I wrote? Everything you object too could be expanded to your sport of backpacking.

By chance you dislodge a rock and are trapped underneath
it hiking solo (has happened more than once). SAR personel have to risk flight time to look for you. Maybe we should outlaw solo hiking.

or going without all the "commonly excepted" amount of gear
you need for a backcountry trip. Fine you heavily if you
need a rescue.

These are already done in climbing and mountaineering. Try to solo Mt Rainier, get arrested or fined.

Need a rescue on El Cap and they find you have a down
sleeping bag instead of a synthetic one, or a Goretex
WPB parka instead of a rubber coated one, expect to pay the
full cost of the rescue.

Only the elite get to participate in shooting sports in Japan
and Germany.

"Ah, excuse me, what are you going on about? That is absolutely not true. Please get your facts straight before making a statement like that to someone who actually lives in these places (I am a German-American living in Japan who partly grew up in the States and partly in Japan and partly Germany)."

Germany- 300,000 licensed hunting participants. Costs
about 700 euros just to get to the point of applying for
a license. This article also talks about its exclusivity.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2335758,00.html

Japan – 259,000 Hunter licenses, (including traps and airguns),
http://www.env.go.jp/en/nature/npr/ncj/section6.html
number of handgun licenses for civilians – 50.

Expense and exclusivity
"The problems indicated by wild boar hunters were the
cost (35.9%) and bad manners of other hunters (25.8%)"
http://www.socpvs.org/journals/index.php/wbp/article/viewDownloadInterstitial/10.2461-wbp.2005.1.17/21

America- 17,000,000 hunting licenses (1995) Costs about
$65 for a license and big game tag in CA for example. Hunters education requirements vary by state.

Population of Japan 127,433,494
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ja.html
.2% hunters per capita

Population of Germany 82,400,996
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/gm.html
.36% hunters per capita

Population of USA 301,139,947
5.6% hunters per capita

Numbers show that an exclusive few hunt in Japan and Germany
compared to the US.

Nothing wrong with more education for hunters of all ages.
Nothing wrong with reviewing the regulations for hunting to
update them with changing knowledge and changing demographics. In this case, a thorough discussion should be
had about prevention.

Talk of banning a certain sport, due to cultural differences
or overblown fear or ignorance rubs me the wrong way.

Dave, you may have some factual numbers, but your interpretation of them is seriously at fault imho.

> Numbers show that an exclusive few hunt in Japan and Germany
compared to the US.
No, what the numbers show is the only a few WANT to hunt in those countries. The same applies in Australia: relatively few of us WANT to hunt. The rest of us dislike guns and don't want to go around shooting things.

David, thanks for statistics. I didn't know the numbers at all.

But just to let you know, it costs on average about $2500 to get a car license here in Japan. That doesn't stop the average person from getting a car license though. Hunting is just not something most people want to do here; got nothing to do with exclusivity among the elite (in general Japan is a very egalitarian society… there are very few truly destitute people and almost no super rich). The Japanese are just very serious about proper education in both driving and using a gun, most especially in using a gun. (which doesn't translate to Japanese being great drivers, they're not. But they do know the basics), so they make the getting of licenses very expensive.

Everything is far more expensive in Japan and Germany than in the States. I mean, it costs about $1.70 for a liter of gasoline here (that would be somewhere around $6.8 a gallon), or about $6,000 just for the first payment of an average one bedroom apartment here (which would be around the same size as an average American garage), to give you an idea of just how expensive things are here. Hunting is just not a priority for most people here, so of course those who want to do it would complain about the high price of a license. The government also wants to actively discourage people from engaging in such a dangerous sport unless participants are very serious about doing it and are willing to go through the difficult hurdles to ensure safety. Personally I think it is very reasonable. Public safety by far comes first. If public safety is threatened then I see nothing wrong with banning any sport, even hiking if it was a constant source of danger to others.

I care nothing about hunting and have absolutely no desire to do it for a pastime ( I would have no qualms about doing it to survive). I never join in "hunting is good or is wrong" discussions because I don't see hunting as something evil in itself. So it's not hunting I'm talking about here, but about the insurance of people's safety. Hunting is lethal; that's what it's all about. It doesn't matter what country or custom it takes place in, the common denominator is that it's dangerous. So if you're going to have hunting in a society, then there must be very stringent rules and regulations. No if or buts.

I do think that Americans are far too laissez faire about people getting killed or hurt. I have quite a number of friends and relatives (just a few weeks ago my brother-in-law's cousin was murdered with a gun in Boston. It was all over the news) who have been killed or mugged or raped or whatever. And it's always this unyielding furor over whether guns are safe or not. It's not just some far off thing happening in another country that doesn't involve me personally. I've lived in the States and lived with the possibility of someone carrying a gun and killing me. I was held up at gunpoint in downtown Boston one time. My mother was mugged and beaten in New York. My brother was mugged and beaten twice. My best childhood friend was abducted and disappeared when I was 8. And more that just makes me too depressed to mention here.

So I am very angry about all this. I am furious about the cavalier way some people have been brushing away that woman's death. And even more furious that the discussion always boils down to whether guns are good or bad. WHO CARES ABOUT THE GUNS! A WOMAN DIED, for goodness sake! DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT! CHANGE THE WHOLE WAY OF THINKING THAT LETS THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPEN!

Okay, calm down, Miguel. No need for a conniption. I'm sure someone understands what you're trying to say.

Right. I heard there is a sale on watermelons at the local supermarket. Only $60.00!!!

No, what the numbers show is the only a few WANT to hunt in those countries. The same applies in Australia: relatively few of us WANT to hunt. The rest of us dislike guns and don't want to go around shooting things.

Roger, you have an incredible ability to very efficiently state what it took me lines and lines to write!

What Roger said.

I often wonder how many people that don't like guns have ever shot them? I love my guns, I love the philosophy behind the second ammendment. The concepts the gun banners can never understand is it's the criminals that do the crime not an inanimate object and when guns are banned only the criminals will have guns! I see hoplophobia here.
The first step to overcome hopliphobia is go shoot a gun.

mike. for me it's not a matter of loving my gun. it's a matter of feeling safe on the trails on the mainland. i carry one because i hike alone. i don't need one on isle royal, but on the mainland there is trouble at the trailheads. i would never shoot without knowing who my target is. people who apply for permits to carry are trained. the criminals usually aren't and don't care about rules. we know the legal ramifications. i hope to GOD i never have to use it…..

Maybe this should be another thread altogether but I feel compelled to respond to a few things posted above which may help explain and clarify my comments.

I don't own guns. I enjoy shooting them. In my past I have done so often and had a good time doing so. When the barrel of the firearm I am firing is pointed at a living creature I no longer enjoy shooting it because I enjoy creatures more when they are alive. I cannot get in touch with the primal part of my brain that allows me to derive pleasure from stalking or killing animals.

I think the Second Amendment is so important that I will capitalize it. I believe that the right own keep and bear arms has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with being able to use deadly force to change your future for the better, if such force is needed.

I am not a vegetarian. I eat a lot of meat. If I had to do the killing myself I would probably not eat nearly the amount of meat I do now. I certainly won't go through the effort required to get said meat if I can obtain it quicker and easier from a store which sells food, which I currently can.

I have hunted and I didn't see the point. I get no thrill from stalk or the hunt, let alone the kill. I live in a fairly conservative community, in a 'red' county, on the fringe of the suburbs where hunting is a popular past time. I don't know thousands of hunters but I do know many. Many hunters I know have little regard for animal life. Many have little regard for human life. These are simply observances based off of the words and actions of these same people. I don't feel all hunters fall into this category.

"I enjoy creatures more when they are alive."
"I eat a lot of meat. If I had to do the killing myself I would probably not eat nearly the amount of meat I do now."
–Tell me this… which animal was more "alive": the one you ate, or the one that a hunter harvested and ate?

"I have hunted and I didn't see the point. I get no thrill from stalk or the hunt, let alone the kill."
–IMO, the point is to respectfully and humanely kill the animal and enjoy eating meat that was harvested in an ethical manner. We have all seen the PETA pictures of factory meat farms. If you like to see animals "alive" then don't support unethical meat.

Don't worry about the "hunters" that shoot just to kill. There are alot of them but there are also a huge number of "ethical" hunters out there who hunt to utilize entire animals.

Don't worry about the "hunters" that shoot just to kill.

But that's the whole point, isn't it? That these are the people to worry about. As you said, there are a lot of them.