Posted on 11/15/2005 12:18:32 PM PST by La Enchiladita
WASHINGTON - Noting that the grizzly bear population in the Yellowstone area has thrived in recent years, the Bush administration on Tuesday announced that it plans to remove federal protections for the animals in the areas around the national park.
"A population that was once plummeting towards extinction is now recovered," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said in making the announcement. "These bears are now no longer endangered" and should be removed from the Endangered Species Act listing.
The Interior Department, through the Fish and Wildlife Service, implements the Endangered Species Act.
"We are sure that these bears will have the habitat that they need," Norton added.
Significant recovery Federal wildlife officials estimate that more than 600 grizzly bears live in the region surrounding Yellowstone in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. They also describe as healthy an annual growth rate over the past decade of 4 to 7 percent.
Those numbers represent a significant recovery. Only 200 or 250 grizzlies were in that region in 1975, when grizzly bears in the lower 48 states were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Once in the hundreds of thousands, the bear population dwindled in the West early in the last century in large part because of hunting and destruction of the animals habitat.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I don't think it's unreasonable for it to be in the low hundred thousands. There were millions of large game animals west of the Mississippi. Grizzlys are pretty big scavengers and very adaptable.
I don't have a book in front of me but don't some of the early accounts of frontiersmen talk about the large numbers of grizzlies they encountered? Seems like it was a lot.
I can get ostrich burgers here... I'll have to run by the place and try it. I usually eat their buffalo burgers myself, but I should try the ostrich. Thanks.
Not all game meat is good. It depends a great deal upon who prepared it, how it was prepared, how it was processed, how it was cared for, etc.
I saw a story in a magazine once that addressed "I had venison once and it was bad." [I paraphrased that because I don't remember the specific complaint.] The article went on to say that if,
A farmer killed a steer, waited a few hours and then did a poor job of field dressing it, dragged it for a mile through a muddy field, flung it in the back of a truck, drove it around all day showing it to his buddies, then hung it from a tree for 2 days, then processed it himself and didn't pay much attention to cleanlinees/hair removal/bone chips/etc., and then didn't package it properly and then cooked it poorly, most people upon trying a sirloin from that steer would say, "I don't like beef."
My point is, "most game meats are good." I think most people that say, "I don't like venison et al" have never had a good cut prepared properly.
I've had deer, elk, bear, beef, lamb, pork, frog legs, alligator and they've all been good. I've had some beef I didn't like.
A buddy of mine eats ground hog and raccoon. He swears it's good but preparation is key. He's got me talked into it. I'm going to try ground hog as soon as I have a decent specimen.
U. horribilis
"How does bear taste? Anybody?"
A little like spotted Owl.
You've had some, too?
Mine was roasted on a stick. Got it at the county fair.
Yeah, but they traveled by horse on game trails and river bottoms in those days. Prime bear country. You don't see that many bears in the open country. One wonders just how good the census was back then. If they extrapolated total population from what they encountered it might be off by several orders of magnitude.
I heard about that while hunting Whooping Crane.
I had ostrich at the California State Fair a few years ago
Tasted good, but they had the ostrich there watching you eat...that was weird.
When was the incidence of this supposed to be happening according to the documentary?? I ask because years ago, the Yellowstone bears and human visitors WERE out of control, the bears coming close to cars and people, being nuisances and dangerous because of the food offered them by foolish people.
It was my understanding that park officials have had a much different approach to bear and foolish people control over the past years and have taken measures to keep them separate. In fact, that was very much my experience in...oh, 1998 or so when we took our daughter out there. We only saw one bear, a grizz and it was very very far away. People stopped on the road to take pictures, which is entirely OK. You had to have a telephoto lens to get any sort of pix, it waas that far away.
But when I was in Yellowstone as a girl, I do distinctly remember the black or brown bears being very unafraid of humans, coming up around the cars etc. Because they were enticed to.
What do you eat with bear?
Mashed tree roots?
Nope. See here:
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/i/A4I.html
A hiker became lost out in the woods - for three days he wandered and lived off the land, drinking from streams, etc.
When the rangers found him, he had killed and was eating a Bald Eagle.
The forest rangers had no choice but to arrest him on the spot.
His trial came up, and he begged the judge for leniency saying, "I was three days with nothing to eat, so I had to kill and eat the eagle to survive."
The judge felt sorry for the young man and dismissed the case. Just as the hiker was leaving the courtroom, the judge, curious, asked, "By the way, what did the Bald Eagle taste like?"
The hiker replied, "It tasted like something between a Spotted Owl and a Whooping Crane, but just a little greasy like California Condor..."
Yes, it was Yellowstone. I wasn't aware of how long ago.
Bearies, pawtatos, cole claw & cub'ed carrots.
Sounds good ... can you make the meat into a type of hamburger ?
on another note, msnbc.com had a live vote of "should they be removed from the endangered list"
so i figured this would be a lanside yes .. i mean after all, if they are not endangered, then they dont need to be on the list...
but i guess the vegan hippies of the world were out in masses this morning... it was voted like 80% no.
so... let me get this straight.. this dangerous animal should be on an endangered list, when its not in danger anymore ?
The Endangered Species Act needs to be modified to allow game management, even hunting, of species that have recovered their numbers to the point that species and neighboring humans have unfortunate encounters.
If Yellow Stone is full of grizzly bears to the point some wander out and kill too many rancher's cattle, the state government DNR should allow some limited grizzly hunting. Men and grizzly bears just don't live nearby in harmony. Taking out the garbage and meeting a bear on the back porch is not something that works.
Depends. Black bear, I understand that black bear isn't too bad, depending on the season. Grizzlies/brown bears are more carnivorous, and would probably reflect that diet in the taste of their meat. I know they SMELL kind of skunky. That's good enough for me...
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