Are We Supposed to Feel Sorry?

[Joe Guy]

Wyoming hunter shoots self while fighting off grizzly attack

PINEDALE, Wyo. (AP) — A hunter accidentally shot himself in the leg while trying to fight off a grizzly bear attack in west-central Wyoming — the second such attack in a week's time, officials said.

Lee Francis, 65, of Evanston, was taken to the University of Utah Health hospital for treatment after the encounter on Friday, the Sublette County Sheriff's Office said. Sue Winchester, a hospital spokesperson, said Sunday she did not have permission to release any information about Francis' condition.

Francis was hunting with his son in an area south of Grand Teton National Park on Friday evening when the bear attacked him. He was able to fire several rounds from his handgun, causing the bear to run away, but one of the rounds hit Francis in the lower leg, the sheriff's office said.

His son used a satellite phone to call for help just before 6 p.m., then began providing first aid. His son was able to help his father onto a horse and they headed toward a nearby lake to meet search and rescue crews. Francis was eventually taken to the hospital via helicopter, the sheriff's office said in a statement.

Wildlife officials have not located the grizzly bear, Sgt. Travis Bingham with the Sublette County Sheriff's Office said Sunday. Because it was snowing, Game and Fish planned to try to search for the bear again on Monday, weather permitting, he said.

Friday's attack was the second grizzly bear mauling in Wyoming in a week.

Two Northwest College wrestlers were attacked by a grizzly bear while they were searching for antlers shed by deer and elk in the Cody area on Oct. 15.

The bear first attacked Brady Lowry, of Cedar City, Utah, breaking his arm and causing other injuries.

Kendell Cummings yelled at and kicked the bear and threw rocks at it before pulling on its ear to get it to stop. However, the bear turned its fury on Cummings, attacking him twice. Cummings, who is from Evanston, underwent several hours of surgery and ended up with about 60 staples in his head and hundreds of stitches to treat his injuries, his father said in a social media post.

You go out into the wild to shoot and kill animals but instead one of them gets you to shoot yourself. Sounds fair to me.

I feel kinda bad for the antler hunting wrestlers but they should have known the risks of being in grizzly country and stayed home and wrestled with each other instead. They're lucky to be alive.

And if Fish & Game people are successful, the bear will pay the ultimate price for acting like a bear.

[Bicycle Bill]

— Insert mandatory pun about supporting the right to arm bears —

-"BB"-

[Joe Guy]

— Insert mandatory pun about supporting the right to arm bears —

-"BB"-

[Crackpot]

At this point it doesn’t sound like they were doing anything outright stupid (aside from forgetting bear spray) so I’ll go with sympathy for now.

[liberty]

Well, if someone had not screwed up the economy with his stupid war on fossil fuels, there might not be so many people with the need to supplement their family's food budget by hunting. I know that night hunting happens around here. I occasionally run across the evidence, and I don't know if I blame them. We have some really poor people in this area. The state has made it easier to hunt illegally at night by allowing the use of the silent crossbow. Someone could be hunting deer at night within a few hundred feet of your property using a crossbow, and you'd never know it.

[Bicycle Bill]

liberty, once we pump and burn all the dead dinosaur syrup out there, then what?  We need to find and implement alternatives, and we need to do it sooner rather than later.

But Luddites and stuck-in-the-muds like you are resistant to anything that disturbs your little corner of the status quo.  I'll bet you probably had relatives who got pissed off when they outlawed hunting sperm whales for THEIR oil, too.

-"BB"-

[ex-khobar Andy]

There's a great book by Jared Diamond called Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. One of the examples he uses is Easter Island which was once covered in forest. Slowly but surely the inhabitants chopped down the trees for lumber and fuel until 18th century colonization found the the previously healthy society had declined to a few hundred individuals. With no trees.

The eventual end of Easter Island civilization was more complex than that - diseases introduced by colonial powers had a lot to do with it - but using up all their resources was definitely a major factor in its decline. I did a calculation once - in a year, we use up the oil that nature took a million years to lay down. Doesn't take a genius to see that we need to take action now to conserve these resources.

[Sue U]

Well, if someone had not screwed up the economy with his stupid war on fossil fuels,

Not even you could be that stupid.

US oil production is at an all-time high:

U.S. crude oil production in our forecast averages 11.7 million b/d in 2022 and 12.4 million b/d in 2023, which would surpass the record high set in 2019.

While net imports of crude oil and liquid fuel products is steadily declining:



Source: US Energy Information Administration

The price pressure on petroleum comes from OPEC, which announced further cuts to production earlier this month even after falling short of its target production number over the summer -- and despite US pressure (particularly on Saudi Arabia) to produce more.

The cheap fuel prices of 2020-21 were almost entirely the result of an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, who literally flooded the market in an effort to cripple each other's economies; coupled with reduced demand due to the COVID pandemic, there was literally more oil being pumped than there were facilities to store it. Supply, meet Demand here in Econ 101.

As for the economy more broadly, inflation is a worldwide problem. I'm pretty sure Joe Biden is not the cause of Germany's current 10% inflation rate. Russia's war in Ukraine and its subsidiary issues might have just a wee bit of influence on the global economy. If the Biden administration attempted to impose price controls, I have no doubt that the right-wing noise machine (and you as its tool) would be accusing him of being a dictator.

[Sue U]

But back to the actual topic of this thread, I'm pretty much with Crackpot on this:

At this point it doesn’t sound like they were doing anything outright stupid (aside from forgetting bear spray) so I’ll go with sympathy for now.

I have mixed feelings about hunting and mammal meat consumption, both of which I am generally opposed to, but I recognize that some people need hunting for subsistence and that hunting can be less environmentally damaging than industrial meat production. Also, deer hunting can be an environmental plus in areas where overpopulation is a problem. But I can't fault a bear for being a bear and doing what bears do (or a cougar or an alligator, either, for that matter).

[Big RR]

But I can't fault a bear for being a bear and doing what bears do (or a cougar or an alligator, either, for that matter).

and overpopulation of these species can be a problem as well. A few months ago I had a bear (a full grown one, around 400 lbs or so) in my backyard. This is in suburban Morris County NJ, but the bear population is increasing and they have to roam somewhere (and when kids are outside, it is a danger). Hell, Morristown had a bear one morning in its Green (a small park)--and Morristown is a small city. Hunting can be used to reduce these populations as well. Face it, these animals (not so sure of alligators, but I think so) really have no viable predators other than man.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Sue

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