Wayne in BC
New member
There he stood! A big yellowish a-hole, 20 ft from the horse corral, looking kind of unsure about the ruckus those nags were making. He turned his head toward us for a moment, then obviously dismissing the three two legged fools, "whuffed" at the horses again and just stood there!
Two things were instantly clear at that moment, one....he was standing between us and the ponies and we could not fire and, two.....he needed to be shot for another good reason, that being the "paint", the nice big blotch of bright red on his flank! That was why he had been so near to us on the trail. His antagonist also maybe, we never saw the black one again to know if it was also "marked".
I thought i had been po-ed enough already but this was too bloody much!!! Now i need to explain that in Alberta there are two National parks that nearly everyone has heard of. The best known is probably "Banff National Park", the other "Jasper National Park". They abut one another, running on a north/south axis for several hundred miles along the spine of the Rocky mountains. We were only 20 miles away from the north east border of Banff Park, with the south east border of Jasper park being maybe 40 miles northwest of us.
The park rangers had to remove "problem" bears from the parks, those that had become "garbage bears" with little respect for humans and thus a danger to tourists, who were in my opinion, often less valuable than the bears
The procedure for ridding the Parks of these bears was (and still is) to livetrap and tranquilize them, then load them in a sling under a helicopter and drop them off outside the park. Though there has never been a shortage of bears, though the Parks staff could not kill them without a media circus and much protesting! Their solution of "relocation" seems wonderful to the public but the Rangers and biologists know very well that there are only two possible results from this approach.
The first being that in a week or three the bears will be back home and in trouble again because they are hooked on the easy life. And number two, a not talked about but in their eyes, better solution ...... that the hunters, guides, and folks frequenting more remote campsites will shoot them illegally, thus "solving" the problem for government parks staff. To heck with the fact that some non tourists could be in danger!
When these bears are captured they are marked with paint and usually relocated within the park, if they come back, and they nearly always do, they are captured and painted with a different color then banished to an area outside of the park, D'oh! This was one such bear that plagued us, some yellow and orange paint was faintly visible on him also! He did not present much actual danger to us, they are seldom inclined to attack. They do present danger to idiots and their unfortunate children who try to handfeed them, accidental bites or swats from a bear who does not understand "all gone"! He did however represent much trouble and expensive damage, as well as risk of injury due to spooked horses. We had to shoot him but needed to get into a position where we did not risk hitting a horse.
Sorry no drama here folks, the bear began walking slowely parallel to us, searching out the smell of our meager dinner. He was totally accustomed to walking among people and raiding their food. We stood quietly until he was clear of the stock then finished the job in a couple seconds of "earsplittenboomincrashin"
The problem then was to get a couple of horses carefully upwind of him, hook on the long ropes and drag him a half mile, still upwind to keep the nags from smelling him and dump the garbage down into a canyon so that the "fish cops" were not forced to bust us for illegally shooting a bear! Arrgghhh!!!!! It was not the first time this happened to us, or to other guides and hunters, nor was it to be the last......"three monkeys" ya know?
No way one of us would waste a day going to town for food, time was too short. Thus my opening statement about hard work and poor grub for a couple more days. Fortunately two days later with us guys real "meat hungry" and a days work to do yet, a yearling deer mysteriously expired near my camp and famine became feast
I know this story took a while, but the arthritis sometimes makes typing slow. Best to all
Wayne
Two things were instantly clear at that moment, one....he was standing between us and the ponies and we could not fire and, two.....he needed to be shot for another good reason, that being the "paint", the nice big blotch of bright red on his flank! That was why he had been so near to us on the trail. His antagonist also maybe, we never saw the black one again to know if it was also "marked".
I thought i had been po-ed enough already but this was too bloody much!!! Now i need to explain that in Alberta there are two National parks that nearly everyone has heard of. The best known is probably "Banff National Park", the other "Jasper National Park". They abut one another, running on a north/south axis for several hundred miles along the spine of the Rocky mountains. We were only 20 miles away from the north east border of Banff Park, with the south east border of Jasper park being maybe 40 miles northwest of us.
The park rangers had to remove "problem" bears from the parks, those that had become "garbage bears" with little respect for humans and thus a danger to tourists, who were in my opinion, often less valuable than the bears
The procedure for ridding the Parks of these bears was (and still is) to livetrap and tranquilize them, then load them in a sling under a helicopter and drop them off outside the park. Though there has never been a shortage of bears, though the Parks staff could not kill them without a media circus and much protesting! Their solution of "relocation" seems wonderful to the public but the Rangers and biologists know very well that there are only two possible results from this approach.
The first being that in a week or three the bears will be back home and in trouble again because they are hooked on the easy life. And number two, a not talked about but in their eyes, better solution ...... that the hunters, guides, and folks frequenting more remote campsites will shoot them illegally, thus "solving" the problem for government parks staff. To heck with the fact that some non tourists could be in danger!
When these bears are captured they are marked with paint and usually relocated within the park, if they come back, and they nearly always do, they are captured and painted with a different color then banished to an area outside of the park, D'oh! This was one such bear that plagued us, some yellow and orange paint was faintly visible on him also! He did not present much actual danger to us, they are seldom inclined to attack. They do present danger to idiots and their unfortunate children who try to handfeed them, accidental bites or swats from a bear who does not understand "all gone"! He did however represent much trouble and expensive damage, as well as risk of injury due to spooked horses. We had to shoot him but needed to get into a position where we did not risk hitting a horse.
Sorry no drama here folks, the bear began walking slowely parallel to us, searching out the smell of our meager dinner. He was totally accustomed to walking among people and raiding their food. We stood quietly until he was clear of the stock then finished the job in a couple seconds of "earsplittenboomincrashin"
The problem then was to get a couple of horses carefully upwind of him, hook on the long ropes and drag him a half mile, still upwind to keep the nags from smelling him and dump the garbage down into a canyon so that the "fish cops" were not forced to bust us for illegally shooting a bear! Arrgghhh!!!!! It was not the first time this happened to us, or to other guides and hunters, nor was it to be the last......"three monkeys" ya know?
No way one of us would waste a day going to town for food, time was too short. Thus my opening statement about hard work and poor grub for a couple more days. Fortunately two days later with us guys real "meat hungry" and a days work to do yet, a yearling deer mysteriously expired near my camp and famine became feast
I know this story took a while, but the arthritis sometimes makes typing slow. Best to all
Wayne
,hey,isn't that just like goverment,danged if you do,danged if you don't.
