Wildalaska
member
Note the last part...the hangun used was a Glock 10mm with yellow box 180 FMJs...he shot off the whole 10 rounds...
His girlfriend is buying a Glock 10mm too...
Marauding bruins keep Russian River closed at night
GRIZZLIES: Officials extend 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. closure through Aug. 21.
By CRAIG MEDRED
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: July 26, 2003)
With a family of grizzly bears staking out a fish-cleaning table on the lower Russian River, state and federal officials have decided to continue until Aug. 21 a nighttime closure to fishing on or hiking along the state's most popular salmon stream.
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge manager Robin West said Friday that officials are worried about public safety.
Almost two weeks after being attacked by a grizzly sow near the U.S. Forest Service's Russian River Campground, angler Daniel Bigley remains in serious condition at the Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.
Since that attack, officials say there have been no reports of the sow with two, or possibly three, tiny cubs that attacked Bigley. But another sow with three nearly grown offspring has been hanging out in recent days not far from where Bigley was mauled.
Area wildlife biologist Jeff Selinger with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Soldotna said the sow herself doesn't appear to be a problem.
"The sow stays back in the woods,'' he said Friday. "She doesn't seem to want to be around people. Hopefully that pattern will remain.''
Her yearling or 2-year-old cubs, however, don't share her fear of humans. They regularly wade out into plain sight in the river to grab salmon carcasses left behind by anglers cleaning fish. The cubs are big -- about the size of black bears -- and potentially dangerous.
Wildlife officials have been trying to educate them as to the danger of humans by bouncing rubber bullets off their butts. The practice known as "hazing'' has worked elsewhere, most notably in the Katmai and Denali national parks in Alaska, but the results along the Russian so far appear limited.
For these young bears, the rewards of salmon carcasses appear to outweigh the punishments of rubber bullets, although the animals do appear less bold than before the hazing began, according to authorities.
"If people get into a group and yell at the bears,'' Selinger said, "they don't necessarily run away, but they don't approach them.''
Federal and state officials involved at the river spoke by teleconference Friday morning to discuss the dangers posed by these and as many as eight other bears that have been seen in the area.
Management authority along the river is complicated. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages the land on the west bank of the Russian River and the Kenai River from the confluence of the two downstream. The U.S. Forest Service controls the east bank of the Russian and the Kenai upstream.
The Wildlife Conservation Division of Fish and Game has authority over wildlife in the area. But Fish and Game's Sport Fish Division controls the fishing. Assistant regional sportfisheries supervisor Tom Vania said Friday the state isn't closing the sportfishery.
Sportfishery managers say they don't want to set a precedent for giving one of the state's main red salmon fisheries back to the bears, and they question whether an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. closure to fishing and hiking will make the river any safer.
The closure, Selinger admitted, could simply encourage greater bear use of the Russian, leading to more problems in the years ahead. But for now, he added, it doesn't make sense to take the risk of people and bears confronting each other in the dark along the river.
"First and foremost, we're talking public safety,'' he said. "We've got a bunch of people around there with guns. If someone has to use them, it's better to shoot in the daylight than the dark.''
With 16 grizzly bears dead on the Kenai Peninsula already this year in so-called "defense of life and property" killings, biologists are, however, hoping that doesn't happen. There's nothing they'd like more than for the Russian bears to follow migrating salmon on up the river into the upper valley, which isn't visited much by humans.
Already this year, the number of DLP bears killed is so high that Selinger canceled a planned Kenai brown bear hunt for fall. Wildlife experts are monitoring the Kenai grizzlies carefully as a "species of concern.'' They fear there is a danger of the population dropping to a level at which it could no longer maintain itself. That would make extinction a possibility.
The loss of productive sows is especially worrisome, Selinger said, and eight of the bears dead so far this year are sows. One of those was shot earlier this week by a man and woman hiking the Hidden Creek Trail.
Just a few hundred yards from Skilak Lake, they got the scare of their life when they ran into a grizzly with cubs, said refuge officer Chris Johnson.
"They heard some noise off to their right, and then off to their left they saw a sow brown bear,'' Johnson said. "It charged at them. They did fire a warning shot. The bear stopped for an instant.''
Then it came on again. The man emptied a semiautomatic pistol at close range. The bear ran off into the brush. The man and woman fled.
Johnson later found the carcass. The dead animal was, he said, a lactating sow -- meaning she had cubs this year -- just like the bear that attacked Bigley not far away at the Russian River only days earlier.
Any possibility of a connection between the two attacks would, however, be pure speculation, said Fish and Game wildlife technician Larry Lewis in Soldotna. The cubs have not been found.
His girlfriend is buying a Glock 10mm too...
Marauding bruins keep Russian River closed at night
GRIZZLIES: Officials extend 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. closure through Aug. 21.
By CRAIG MEDRED
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: July 26, 2003)
With a family of grizzly bears staking out a fish-cleaning table on the lower Russian River, state and federal officials have decided to continue until Aug. 21 a nighttime closure to fishing on or hiking along the state's most popular salmon stream.
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge manager Robin West said Friday that officials are worried about public safety.
Almost two weeks after being attacked by a grizzly sow near the U.S. Forest Service's Russian River Campground, angler Daniel Bigley remains in serious condition at the Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.
Since that attack, officials say there have been no reports of the sow with two, or possibly three, tiny cubs that attacked Bigley. But another sow with three nearly grown offspring has been hanging out in recent days not far from where Bigley was mauled.
Area wildlife biologist Jeff Selinger with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Soldotna said the sow herself doesn't appear to be a problem.
"The sow stays back in the woods,'' he said Friday. "She doesn't seem to want to be around people. Hopefully that pattern will remain.''
Her yearling or 2-year-old cubs, however, don't share her fear of humans. They regularly wade out into plain sight in the river to grab salmon carcasses left behind by anglers cleaning fish. The cubs are big -- about the size of black bears -- and potentially dangerous.
Wildlife officials have been trying to educate them as to the danger of humans by bouncing rubber bullets off their butts. The practice known as "hazing'' has worked elsewhere, most notably in the Katmai and Denali national parks in Alaska, but the results along the Russian so far appear limited.
For these young bears, the rewards of salmon carcasses appear to outweigh the punishments of rubber bullets, although the animals do appear less bold than before the hazing began, according to authorities.
"If people get into a group and yell at the bears,'' Selinger said, "they don't necessarily run away, but they don't approach them.''
Federal and state officials involved at the river spoke by teleconference Friday morning to discuss the dangers posed by these and as many as eight other bears that have been seen in the area.
Management authority along the river is complicated. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages the land on the west bank of the Russian River and the Kenai River from the confluence of the two downstream. The U.S. Forest Service controls the east bank of the Russian and the Kenai upstream.
The Wildlife Conservation Division of Fish and Game has authority over wildlife in the area. But Fish and Game's Sport Fish Division controls the fishing. Assistant regional sportfisheries supervisor Tom Vania said Friday the state isn't closing the sportfishery.
Sportfishery managers say they don't want to set a precedent for giving one of the state's main red salmon fisheries back to the bears, and they question whether an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. closure to fishing and hiking will make the river any safer.
The closure, Selinger admitted, could simply encourage greater bear use of the Russian, leading to more problems in the years ahead. But for now, he added, it doesn't make sense to take the risk of people and bears confronting each other in the dark along the river.
"First and foremost, we're talking public safety,'' he said. "We've got a bunch of people around there with guns. If someone has to use them, it's better to shoot in the daylight than the dark.''
With 16 grizzly bears dead on the Kenai Peninsula already this year in so-called "defense of life and property" killings, biologists are, however, hoping that doesn't happen. There's nothing they'd like more than for the Russian bears to follow migrating salmon on up the river into the upper valley, which isn't visited much by humans.
Already this year, the number of DLP bears killed is so high that Selinger canceled a planned Kenai brown bear hunt for fall. Wildlife experts are monitoring the Kenai grizzlies carefully as a "species of concern.'' They fear there is a danger of the population dropping to a level at which it could no longer maintain itself. That would make extinction a possibility.
The loss of productive sows is especially worrisome, Selinger said, and eight of the bears dead so far this year are sows. One of those was shot earlier this week by a man and woman hiking the Hidden Creek Trail.
Just a few hundred yards from Skilak Lake, they got the scare of their life when they ran into a grizzly with cubs, said refuge officer Chris Johnson.
"They heard some noise off to their right, and then off to their left they saw a sow brown bear,'' Johnson said. "It charged at them. They did fire a warning shot. The bear stopped for an instant.''
Then it came on again. The man emptied a semiautomatic pistol at close range. The bear ran off into the brush. The man and woman fled.
Johnson later found the carcass. The dead animal was, he said, a lactating sow -- meaning she had cubs this year -- just like the bear that attacked Bigley not far away at the Russian River only days earlier.
Any possibility of a connection between the two attacks would, however, be pure speculation, said Fish and Game wildlife technician Larry Lewis in Soldotna. The cubs have not been found.
