Why punish the bear?

A quote from your link
”[British Columbia Environment Minister Terry]Lake says the animal was put down because bears remember food sources”.

But that food source is now depleted….

Well, suppose you entered a career path, but rarely got the chance to ply your trade. That’s what people who go into the euthanasia business are like, plus they are probably constantly itching in their shriveled little balls to kill stuff.

I actually don’t get this policy of killing wildlife that eats people. Predatory animals exist, and there are plenty of places where we can enjoy outdoor recreation without having to run into them. If people are stupid enough to go camping in bear country, or to die where a bear might devour their body, suffer the consequences – mild in this case, since nobody was actually injured.

Hungry bear don’t care. Bears don’t judge people’s lifestyles—if they’ve acquired the taste, then we’re all just meals (or, if the person is a child, snacks).

Would you still be saying why punish the bear when it shows up on your kids school playground looking for its next snack?

At least once a week I see stories of bears being treed and tranquilized in suburbia. What is to stop one of them that has acquired a taste for human from tearing open your door?

@WestRiverrat – Anybody dumb enough to put a playground where hungry bears are roaming deserves to be the next meal. I only wish it would happen before innocent little precious white suburban children were involved. Really, there is plenty of room in North America to live where there are no bears.

When I was in 3rd grade a bear moved into the city park right next to the school. Like central park in NYC the park was in the center of town. They tranquilized her and moved her twice, the second time was out of state. The third time she came back they euthanized her.

The bear didn’t show up until after the State made it illegal to hunt them.

I don’t think black bears are that prone to eating people. I don’t really see anything especially wrong with moving it – even far, far, far, far away, but killing it seems a bit excessive.

Also, I don’t have a problem with hunting. Wanton killing is another matter.

“the bear’s description matched that of one seen ”

Really? What was the description? “It looked like a bear.”?

Bears and civilization have always been a problem. Now add one that has a taste for human flesh and you have a real problem. The only thing to do is destroy the bear. It’s not like they’re an endangered species. If you need bears, you can have some of ours.

The problem @bolwerk is bears have a good memory for home and will often make there way home regardless of how far away you move them.

Personally, I don’t think there was any reason to kill the bear. The guy was already dead! It’s not like the bear terrorised him and then killed him itself. They’re obviously worried that the bear was going to seek out human meat (after getting a taste for it) again but basically the bear was killed for taking a free meal opportunity. Sounds unfair to me.

Why punish the bear? It had a taste for human meat and thus presented a threat to all humans near where it was. It’s just an animal. It doesn’t know right from wrong. Once it likes human meat, it’ll go after it if it finds some easily available.

But let’s not think of it as punishment. The bear is not a moral creature. It just does what it does, like a machine. If a machine is designed wrong, you have to redesign it and modify it. Unfortunately, you can’t do that with a living creature. So the bear has to be killed. But it is not punishment.

You don’t have to do anything to it. It’s out in the wilderness, far away from any place people should reasonably go. If they do go, it’s their risk.

And people keep babbling about how the bear learned to eat human flesh, but most likely what it was doing was eating rotting meat. That does not translate into eating live human.

The bear is already dead, no amount of moaning is going to change that one iota ;¬}

I wonder if someone got to eat the bear?

That would be acceptable, really. At least then killing it would have a point.