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Trial sets precedent Verdict in grizzly bear shooting shows that people must jus
boneaddict:
I'm impressed he did the right thing and stood up and admitted it, however I think the Jury was right. It does sound like fear versus self defense.
Atroxus:
--- Quote from: GoldTip on May 28, 2010, 09:38:25 AM ---The key to this verdict as stated in the article is the bear was "40 yards away when it was shot and had not charged." That is a great plenty of distance for a bear to be away from you and remain quite handily out of harms way. I grew up on the western border of Glacier park. My parents still live there surrounded by national forests. In the last week my father has been within 40 yards of non charging grizzly bears 3 times. Hell, he could have re-carpeted his entire house with Grizzly hide twice and added in the 36x48 shop once with the non charging grizzlies he's had within 40 yards in the last 5 years. Hell, I was 15 yards from a Grizzly just last summer here in Washington. The point is, if you hunt in Grizzly country you can't be scared of them, period. Aware and respectful, yes, very much so. But this was a fair verdict, and to be honest, I am rather surprised they didn't nail him further if there was no evidence of a charge.
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So by that logic if a bad guy with a knife is closing slowly from 21 feet you shouldn't shoot because he's not charging? I haven't done the math but I pretty sure that at 40 yards if the bear had charged it could have closed the distance pretty fast at over 30Mph, possibly fast enough to seriously injure or kill the guy before he could kill it. IMO any large predator that shows no fear of humans should be put down immediately before they make a snack out of one of us. We weren't there so the only one that really knows for sure how things went down is the guy that shot the bear. Who are we to say his life wasn't in danger. Obviously he *believed* it was, and reacted accordingly. Penalizing someone for acting in self defense even if that penalty is "only a misdemeanor" seems ludicrous to me.
Rob:
--- Quote from: boneaddict on May 28, 2010, 12:26:55 PM ---It does sound like fear versus self defense.
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I concur, you shouldn't shoot a bear because you are "afraid" of it. If you are under attack, that's plenty fine.
The way I see it, if the bear was feeding and not charging, and he had the opportunity/time to draw and fire a weapon, then he should also have been able to back away with the weapon on the bear, and still have plenty of time to pull the trigger if it starts a charge. That said, it is pretty easy to offer hindsight from afar!
I gotta say, this makes me an even bigger fan of pepper spray! Mr. Griz is such a magnificent animal, to be able to see one in the wild is one of the privileges of being out in the wild-being a part of the cycle of life. If you can protect yourself with spray and both you and the bear can walk away, so much the better.
canyelk48:
A friend of mine was deer hunting near Seeley Lake, MT, and was being stalked by a huge cougar. He tried yelling, waving his arms and slowing backing away; to which the cougar only closed the gap with a "cat-like" crawl. When it got to within 20 yards (about 2 leaps) he shot and killed the cat. He was alone and no one else in the area to witness this. Even though there had been a huge winter kill of deer the previous year, and the local game warden noted previous aggressive encounters with cougars due to a food shortage; my friend ended up with a $500 fine and loss of his MT hunting license for the rest of the year. So much for honesty. SSS seems to apply in these situations too.
Atroxus:
--- Quote from: canyelk48 on May 28, 2010, 12:52:19 PM ---A friend of mine was deer hunting near Seeley Lake, MT, and was being stalked by a huge cougar. He tried yelling, waving his arms and slowing backing away; to which the cougar only closed the gap with a "cat-like" crawl. When it got to within 20 yards (about 2 leaps) he shot and killed the cat. He was alone and no one else in the area to witness this. Even though there had been a huge winter kill of deer the previous year, and the local game warden noted previous aggressive encounters with cougars due to a food shortage; my friend ended up with a $500 fine and loss of his MT hunting license for the rest of the year. So much for honesty. SSS seems to apply in these situations too.
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Ugh thats ridiculous. According to what I have read mountain lions can leap up to 45 feet horizontally. In my opinion that guy should never have been fined either. I guess you may be right though, if a self-defense situation occurs maybe it is just better to SSS then risk being fined and/or losing hunting privileges for defending yourself. :bash:
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