Letters To The Editor

Give bears a chance

Idaho is the only state outside Alaska which continues to permit the spring hunting of bears and the hunting of bears with bait and with dogs. Such practices are very wrong, both in terms of sensible wildlife management and on ethical grounds.

Bears which become accustomed to bait have their natural behavior patterns destroyed or modified. Spring hunting inevitably kills mothers, thereby guaranteeing the miserable and wretched deaths of her cubs. Those who defend the use of dogs say it permits hunters to be selective, which may be true - but hunters tend to select the biggest, strongest, healthiest bears for their trophies, which is exactly the opposite of the way nature operates.

If hunting is truly a sport, it should require skills to be exercised, and it should give the opponent a legitimate opportunity to win. Sitting near a pile of garbage or jelly donuts, or following radio-collared dogs to where a frightened bear is hugging a tree requires little skill, and offers the quarry very little chance of winning. The bear hardly knows it’s even in a contest until it’s dead.

In 1992, a public opinion poll sponsored by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and conducted by Boise State University found that the citizens of Idaho opposed all these hunting techniques by margins of at least 60 to 40 percent. The people, sportsmen and legislators of Idaho should act to prohibit the spring hunting of bears, and the use of bait and dogs. Roy C. Rineer Millersville, Pa.

Public lands belong to all

Warning to those greedy millionaire cattle ranchers whose steers are savaging lands owned by all Americans: We don’t have to eat your meat. We can pass by the red meat section of the supermarkets and live quite well, perhaps better. There are a lot more consumers than ranchers. If your cattle soil the springs feeding pristine salmon streams, then goodbye to hamburger, roast and steaks.

Our family probably will just toss the frozen hamburger and roast we bought on sale instead of eating it. Maybe the word “boycott” doesn’t bother you.

The public lands belong to all the people, just like Niagara Falls and Yellowstone Park, not to a greedy few. Graham R. Hodges Liverpool, N.Y.