Man who shot bear refuses plea bargain

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I have a problem with ignoring or downplaying large, very powerful, heavily armed and unpredictable meat eaters who are not shy of human beings and dogs, and are hanging out in my vicinity.

Maybe some people are unimpressed enough to blow it off, but am not.
 
A simple application of the 3 "S" would have been less of a hassel. Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up.
 
Years ago we successfully prosecuted a guy for the unlawful killing of a bear. He tried to argue he was preventing the future destruction of his fruit trees and property (bears had eaten and torn up some things in the past). Different facts, though: our guy got a call from neighbors reporting a bear on his property, and drove 200 miles to come shoot it out of a pine tree.

Treat them just like you would a human attacker: be smart, and if you can, remove yourself from the situation if you can. If retreat is unsafe or impractical, do your thing. Don't drive 200 miles to create a "confrontation."

Just my $.02
 
I'm not from there either but I have a lot of family down there and I can tell you that KDF&W is getting a little out of had from what I can see for my self (harassing/baiting hunters and such and bringing in dangerous predators). The man FELT threatened that’s enough for me. Now if there had been bear meat in the frying pan and a fresh rug on the wall then there may be a small problem but for pity sakes he (his wife) called the law. That show me that there was no maliciousness to it.
 
Why doesn't some big boar black bear wander into *MY* yard!? Up here it's prefectly fine to shoot them and claim them as a legit kill with your standard resident hunting license.

Of course maybe that's why they won't come to my yard. They prefer to bother folks in Anchorage neighborhoods in no-shooting zones. Odd how bear and moose seem to know so much about the GMU boundaries. :D
 
We have a ton of bear here in PA, funny how no one here is shooting them for walking on their property. Heck, I've stood 50' from one while it was walking around a lady's house.....and she was alot closer standing their in her pj's with a camcorder.

This is creating the problem. That bear is learning not to fear humans, and since it undoubtedly was foraging, actually learning to associate humans with food with no negative consequence. Worse than just the circumstance for that particular bear, creating a sub-population of black bears within the specie that aren't afraid of humans, they will pass this behavior to their offspring, they'll overpopulate and the bears will come to the very worst spot for them (residential neighborhoods).



Fed Bear=Dead Bear - it's not just a national park slogan.
 
Bear on his property. Bear dead. Reasons don't matter. The Game and Fish can pound sand. I'll kill any animal I want that wanders into my back yard and anyone who wants to say something about it can go to hell. Just my opinion.
 
I and a couple gazillion other organisms are large, powerful heavily armed meat eaters, but treat us with respect and we'll leave you alone.

Seriously, not every bear is a problem and there are other reponses than just killing them. You'll never have a workable season with all the income to your area that that entails if they are killed on a whim. In the long run that bear was worth a lot of money to sportsmen, biologists and tourists. If the state is serious about repopulating bears it wont work with this kind of response.

Bear management is a science, with a lot of art thrown in. Y'all that have them around should consider yourself lucky. Improperly handled they can be a problem, but treat'em right and everybody'll do great without anybody getting hurt or killed, unecessarily. Sorta like guns.
 
"Bear on his property. Bear dead. Reasons don't matter. The Game and Fish can pound sand. I'll kill any animal I want that wanders into my back yard and anyone who wants to say something about it can go to hell. Just my opinion." ... Brasso

At last, a sensible response! :D

Walt disney would be horrified, what are that poor bears wife and kids going to think when he doesn't come home?
 
Something was wrong if the bear wasn't afraid of the dogs. Any bear that is not afraid of dogs or people is dangerous, what if little kids where playing in the yard? And after watching films of black bears tearing the doors off of cars at Yellowstone, I wouldn't have felt very safe in the trailer either.

Something is terribly wrong when we are expected to sacrifice our property (dogs and horses) and risk our lives so that one wild animal can live. Most people are so far removed from wildlife and nature that they have lost touch with reality. It used to be considered humane to "put down" a wounded or sick animal. Now if you shoot an animal to end it's suffering and a neighbor sees you, you'll probably get arrested. Now when a motorist hits a deer, the deer has to lay in the ditch suffering until an animal control officer or cop shows up to shoot it because everyone else is afraid they'll get in trouble. Common sense is gone.
 
And what would this guy have been charged with if he took a wild bear and released it in someone's yard or other private property?
 
Seriously, not every bear is a problem and there are other reponses than just killing them

Something was wrong if the bear wasn't afraid of the dogs. Any bear that is not afraid of dogs or people is dangerous, what if little kids where playing in the yard?

I don't think these two responses are as far a part as may seem at first blush.

No, not every bear is a threat, and not all bears should be killed on sight, and yes, a bear that isn't afraid of dogs or people (as this one, if the news accounts are accurate, wasn't) and is in your yard is an imminent hazard, certainly to anything you have outdoors, and after a couple trips back to your house, even to you inside your house (see link)


http://www.dailyfreeman.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1769&dept_id=74969&newsid=12727600&PAG=461&rfi=9


If people who encountered bears were putting a light load of birdshot into their backsides (and this is probably legally inadvisable) from a protected shooting location at 25 or 30 yards at the bears first encounter with humans the bear would quickly learn to avoid humans - a plus for both humans and bears. Unfortunately that is probably as likely to see you prosecuted as killing a bear, if the sort of people who are deciding whether or not to prosecute you are the same type of people who think bears are harmless enough to stand around outside in close proximity to them.

At Elmendorf Air Base in Alaska, they used to have a bear discouragement program that included terrorizing the bears after trapping them, before relocation/release. Apparently it had some success.

Being able to trap and relocate an animal is a nice luxury to have, but it's not something I'd insist upon for a man on his own property that has a reasonable fear for significant property damage, including the loss of a pet or livestock.
 
Kill everything that is not afraid of us!!!!!!

Yeah, thats a sure sign of how superior man is :rolleyes:

As far as being 50' from a bear and not having a problem......its called co-existing. This bear in particular was just walking through an area near the top of the mountain. He wasn't tearing up garbage cans.......raiding rabbit cages.......he just liked to cross through this are. I only saw him once, the woman said she's seen him several times over the summer.

Guess she should have shot him, instead of admiring such a rare sight.

As for the bear and dogs, like I said the article doesn't say if the dogs were chained, and I'm betting they weren't. So the bear is walking through a yard and suddenly gets surrounded by several dogs. Mst bears will immediately go to tree, but if there isn't one around, I'm sure they'll decide to stand their ground. Doesn't mean the bear needs to be shot.

If there were kids in the yard, then that is a totally different story. But all the article says is he has kids, not that they were in the yard.
 
As far as being 50' from a bear and not having a problem......its called co-existing....As for the bear and dogs, like I said the article doesn't say if the dogs were chained, and I'm betting they weren't. So the bear is walking through a yard and suddenly gets surrounded by several dogs. Mst bears will immediately go to tree, but if there isn't one around, I'm sure they'll decide to stand their ground. Doesn't mean the bear needs to be shot.

If there were kids in the yard, then that is a totally different story. But all the article says is he has kids, not that they were in the yard.

I would call it it foolhardy. It's your life. Risk it as you choose, but don't ask others to take the same risks you are willing to take.

Why should the dogs be chained on the property that they belong? The article indicates that there was a horse in the yard that was spooked by the bear, do you have any familiarity with horses? Any idea how quickly a spooked horse can seriously injure itself? Is your claim that the pets and livestock of a homeowner should take secondary importance to that of a wild animal?

I'm sorry if I misunderstood your original post, but I thought you said that there was a woman in her pajamas closer than 50 feet to the bear. That didn't sound like a mountaintop encounter to me, it sounded like an encounter in a residential area.
 
Any potentially DANGEROUS animal that doesn't fear people enough to stay away from their dwellings SHOULD be shot.
 
I love animals, all sorts. I love to watch them, eat them, hunt them, own them & pet them. They're just plain neat.

But we gota remember that no animal is worth a person's life...or thier livlihood.

From the sounds of it, Mr. Brock was not a wealthy man (mobile home, E Ky, hierloom .30-30 & not the latest magnum-boomer-rifle). I'm willing to bet a lot of his wealth was tied up in his horses and dogs...which were in danger of being mauled (dogs) or injuring themselves due to panic (horses).

So is this man to stand by and watch his animals be destroyed by another animal? I'll tell you what, any wild animal tries to mess with MY dogs is gonna end up dog food.

My dogs aren't world champions, but they go for around $400 each here in DFW. Then there is the emotional attachment my family has for our dogs. If I didn't have the stones to plug "Gentle Ben," my wife surely would. She has NO mercy on those that threaten her loved ones (of which the dogs count themselves) and turns from little Miss Sweetness into Mrs Wrath.

It boils down to: Mr. Brock felt his pets & livestock threatened & he did what he felt he had to do to remove the threat. He even took the time to use non-lethal means to ward the bear off. It doesn't matter if hte predator had two legs or four.
 
Oh, one last thing:

Getting to within 50' of a wild animal that can rip you limb from limb and eats meat is a BAD IDEA. Kind of like hanging around folks you know to have committed violent crimes in the past.
 
My dogs aren't world champions, but they go for around $400 each here in DFW. Then there is the emotional attachment my family has for our dogs. If I didn't have the stones to plug "Gentle Ben," my wife surely would. She has NO mercy on those that threaten her loved ones (of which the dogs count themselves) and turns from little Miss Sweetness into Mrs Wrath.

My dogs are worthless in terms of dollar value. They are both mixed breed pound puppies. That said they are members of our family and both are worth more to us than any wild animal.

That said if my dogs escaped my property and endangered someone else's dogs or livestock, and they killed my dog or dogs, regardless of how sad I'd be, I'd understand that that was their right, and wouldn't hold it against them. With that in mind I've cultivated a good relationship with my neighbors, and I think they know that if my dogs caused one of their cows or horses to break a leg, that I'd be good for the value of their animal. I think my dogs are safer for that. I think if the Kentucky department of fish and wildlife cultivated such an understanding with the citizens of Kentucky, that their black bears would be a lot safer.

That's a decision that the citizens of Kentucky will have to make in regard to the value of their black bears vs. private property.
 
Bear comes near my home ,bear stays right in front of fireplace. I have 1 lab and 5 german shepards , 2 horses,4 cats, 3 daugthers and 1 stupied bird none on a chain. Horses are fenced in and bird in cage sometimes I would not consider a bear friendly,just hungry. I have no duty to retreat.I have 55A he stays in woods and not near home or animals he's welcome comes near home kids or animals he's rug.:D
 
Based on the info given, good shoot. It's nice to see somebody stand up for themselves and not take the plea bargan. I know personally several people who accepted plea bargans thinking it was the cheap way out of something they couldn't control. Those plea bargans can be very costly :fire:

I hope he has a decent lawyer.
 
There is a hard paved road that goes over the mountain.......there are houses along the top ridge of the mountain. The bear was coming up one side of the mountain, crossed the road in front of me, which caused me to stop. I get out and watch him walk through the woods into the yard of the woman. I walk around the other side of the house to see the woman standing there at the other corner, taping the bear. We stand and watch for several minutes.

No one freaked.....no one yelled get a gun.......the bear walked through her yard into the next yard.....and we lost sight of it. I talked with the lady for a few minutes and she said they (the neighbors) have been seeing the bear (or bears) in the area. Again, no big deal. Guess you'd have to live in a rural area to understand. I don't make a habit of getting that close to bears, but the bear showed no signs of even caring we were there.

I've seen alot of bears (20+), here in NEPA, but never during bear season!!

Another time I had an up close (about 40 yards) encounter with a bear was during a past deer season. Mid morning my brother walked down to where I was and we were chatting (he was facing me) when I told him there was a bear behind him. Of course his eyes popped wide open and he said, "what?" I said there is a bear behind you, he turned and sure enough there was about a 200lb bear walking down the hill. We just sat there and watched him walk on through.

People here in PA get bears in their backyards all the time, thankfully they have enough sense to enjoy this rare sight, instead of shooting them.
 
Steve in PA

With all due respect sir,I think we would all agree with protecting our children,dogs & horses from any threat.
What constitutes a threat seems to be the issue, all though I personally think it's a good shoot I can certainly understand how you feel as I had been a vegetarian for 15 years and have a hard time with killing any animal.
Put yourself in his boots for a minute,you have some dogs in your yard freaking out,your horse is about to break it's leg and your children are in the mobile home that is zero protection from a hungry/frightened bear.
You have seconds to decide before the horse breaks his leg,the dogs get mauled and even if your kids do not get attacked you've got dead dogs and horses to deal with (& your kids have to deal with it too).
What do you do?....

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90407&highlight=Treadwell

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73637&highlight=Treadwell

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57394&highlight=Treadwell

http://www.lewrockwell.com/fontova/fontova43.html
 
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