by jhwygirl
Well, this link no longer works – for some reason, The Helena Independent has apparently removed the story from its pages….but after some searching, I found this, from KPAX, Missoula’s CBS affiliate.
(UPDATE: Found this, via Wulfgar!s link, below, from the Great Falls Tribune. Should have known to look there.)
FWP officials euthanized 5 bears in the Smith River drainage last month, after they had become habituated to humans. The habituation was the result of rancher and outfitter Gary Anderson,71, of the Heaven on Earth Ranch near Ulm having fed the bears, repeatedly, with grain. He was hand-feeding them.
In the story deleted from the HelenaIR, a FWP game warden was apparently awaken, while camping, by one bear who was licking his hand.
This kind of irresponsible behavior disgusts me. It goes on, despite the best efforts of FWP, and common sense. How many of those 5 were sows? Ultimately, was it just 5 that were killed, or 3 or 4 generations?
Ultimately this is a crime against all citizens of Montana. I don’t know what the appropriate punishment is – but $135 certainly is not enough.
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September 16, 2008 at 10:36 pm
What was he thinking? That’s what I’d like to know… “Anderson didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.” just doesn’t satisfy.
September 17, 2008 at 7:17 am
On a radio report is where I picked up the “outfitter” part. Anyone really knows better – he absolutely did.
September 17, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Get real. All bears like things all the time. Are you kidding me?!
These 5 bears were not a danger to any humans and the entire “habituated to humans” is silly psychobabble hogwash from government psychologists because the Montant FWP budget is way, way too high and these do-gooders have nothing else to do but invent work in an effort to spend the excess money.
This was a 100% totally unjustified destruction of wildlife. Leave the rancher alone and leave the bears alone!
September 17, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Rancher? I seem to recall that he was also an outfitter. Game-baiting, perhaps? I find it odd that the question appears to have not been raised.
And, Mr. Bland, it is an unfortunate fact that all large predators are a danger to humans, especially our young primates. Bears are unpredictable, and where one predator sets up shop, others will as well. We know this not from some kind of racketeered psychological study, but from intensive biological study of animal behavior. I question whether your attitude would be remotely the same if some small child had been mauled.
When I was a kid, I let a sow black bear take a cherry from the stem I held in my mouth. That was at Fort Bent, in Colorado, and the bear had been raised in captivity from birth. Even still, the bear had a logging chain in a hold around it’s throat. I don’t think I’m the only one who questions the wisdom of human-bear interaction when the animal is not afraid, unrestrained, and we are so fragile as in this case.
Yes, the bears needed to be put down. But the price was way too low. As I posted to MetaFilter today, I would be happy to pay Anderson’s fine if I were afforded the chance to beat that asshole senseless.
September 17, 2008 at 5:00 pm
My bad. It was rude not to link to the MetaFilter thread. Rudeness corrected.
September 17, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I get bears at my house all the time, except I don’t feed them, I chase them off!
September 17, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Well said, Wulfgar! Thanks for that link..
Jim – I used to get bears (and elk and moose and coyotes wolves and deer and mountain lions- oh, the stories I could tell) all the time at a previous residence. While it was certainly an area where wildlife was going to frequent, irregardless, the area became all the more ‘dangerous’ (’dangerous’ in the sense that the woods present danger – a danger different than that of the urban danger of walking the downtown streets of Missoula after dark) due to California homeowners, there for all of maybe 8 weeks a year, total, who thought it was “cute” to feed deer.
Well, deer are stupid. So the mountain lion looked at these private feedgrounds as lunch lines.
So the mountain lion would take a deer whenever it pleased. He eats the quick and tasty stuff, and stashes it away – only, he never has to come back to it because, again, it’s free lunch, right?
Wolves, though, come in for that free lunch left behind from the mountain lion -see, they don’t like people as much, but they do like free food. Only, there’s lots of that…
Coyotes move in to scavenge that which the wolves eat quickly – because the wolves can move on to other free lunches as quickly as the mountain lion does in their multiple deer meals in day. Coyotes, on the other hand, are opportunistic – and moreso when there are wolves around.
Me? I only wanted to safely walk the neighborhood – but with mountain lions prowling around, it was a pretty creepy place.
One morning, my chessie went tearing off chasing something – and fortunately, she was a pretty big dog. Maybe the mountain lion was small – it was so quick I barely saw it practically flying through the air.
I did think I had lost her that day…but she showed up a good 40 minutes later, trophy in her mouth – a bone-picked clean deer carcass.
I hung it on the fence post, thinking the neighbors might get the message that by feeding bambi, they were killing bambi.
Ultimately, the landlord (from Philadelphia) gave me a call, and I had to take it down. The sight of the carcass was too politically UNcorrect.
I can go on..but you get the picture.
I rarely minded the bears – they were easy to chase off if I had to get out of the house – but moose? Now, there’s an animal that doesn’t give a shit if you have to get to town.
September 18, 2008 at 11:11 am
Bureaucrats inventing work?
WWWHHHAAAA?!
September 19, 2008 at 9:05 pm
My extended family has land just upriver from Gary, he was baiting, feeding bears IN FRONT of clients. He also “forgets to harvest” portions of grain fields in order to have a “gravy bowl” for clients to hunt in. The whole family is not like this, and Gary is purportedly under a great deal of scrutiny because of the many other bears now conditioned to people. At my family cabin things are a lot less safe then a year or so ago. I know I am rethinking my trip in October. Other landowners in the area are frustrated because the bears are now a problem for a wide area.
September 19, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I am both sad and mad at hearing that, molly.
Maybe you should contact FWP – they should be working with landowners in the area, educating them on being extra careful with things like garbage containers – even empty ones – and bbq grills, bird feeders, fruit trees (if there are any up there), etc. Doors, windows, sheds – even grass seeds and stuff like that.
It sounds like there is going to be lots of hungry bears up there. The better thing might be to relocate them – if that is possible.
I’m going to say it. Asshole. Irresponsible asshole.
And to think that he was an outfitter. Setting up hunts like that?
Ugh.
September 20, 2008 at 9:07 am
The day that story appeared in the GF Tribune I contacted the game warden in question at FWP to express my dismay. I used the e-mail comment box directed to his address from the FWP staff list. My message bounced back to me…”address unknown.” Hmmm. The next day I sent a letter to the editor of the GF Tribune (pasted below) but got a “verification failed” message after I clicked “send.” What the…? Here’s the letter I tried to send:
The Heaven on Earth Ranch provided a one-way ticket to heaven for five black bears thanks to Gary Anderson, the outfitter who illegally hand-fed them, according to reports. Anderson was fined a laughable $135…that’s $27 per bear. At the very least, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks should consider him a poacher and fine him a minimum $2000 per bear, and the Forest Service should revoke his outfitter’s license. If they don’t get tough with wildlife abusers, the agencies have to share the blame. Good grief, here in Montana, even school kids know that a fed bear is a dead bear. (end)
(Ok, so one irony is the fact that the agencies themselves abuse and kill Montana’s wildlife–witness the government-sponsored Yellowstone bison slaughter. But that’s for another day.)
Here’s the website for the Heaven on Earth ranch http://www.deepcreekoutfitters.com/ which includes Anderson’s e-mail.
September 20, 2008 at 9:19 am
I found this page to contact the FWP Commissioner’s: http://fwp.mt.gov/contact/general.aspx?s=14
I wonder if he has a state outfitter’s license. Doesn’t the state regulate outfitting too?
Geez. You are right. And you bring up more than I considered in the first place.
And yes..don’t get me started on bison. I’m already on a roll this morning. Maybe I need to go get some
coffeetea in me.Chamomile.
September 26, 2008 at 8:57 am
First off JHWYGirl there’s no such word as irregardless. That and your 100% conviction rate scare me. Irregardless, you are all correct about the extreme importance of not feeding bears. However, the five bears taken down were 6 miles from Mr. Anderson’s Ranch. Did those 5 bears have name tags on them identifying them as the “conditioned bears”? Or did it go down like this…………..the first five bears sighted were killed? What about the bear running around with a snare around his neck? Why did Montana Flush, Nightlife, and Gameboy lay a carcass out to bait these bears? Why the hell did a warden get his hand licked by a bear in the middle of the night? Was he sleeping out under the stars perhaps? hmmmm Maybe the bear ripped through his tent to attack him. Was his tent flap left open? Or did Mr. Warden eat a six pack of Twinkies in his tent that evening? How does a bear lick your hand if you are in the tent? I say “Lick the damn bear back, that will probably chase him off for good”.
Years ago Mr. Anderson nursed a bear cub who had lost her mother and this bear eventually went off to “be a bear.” On the surface he looks like a heathen. He’s not. All you hypocrites see black and white. Oh but wait…..you don’t have any blacks in Montana. No gays either right?