Letters to the editor Nov. 23

Bear spray saves lives

I am a longtime, year-round Flathead Valley resident and spend a lot of time in the woods, typically alone, hiking and skiing, and performing trail maintenance with a partner or two. I always carry bear spray and never carry a gun.

I was disheartened when I heard about yet another needless killing of two grizzly bears in the Seeley Lake area. In this latest incident, the hunters made at least a couple mistakes that ultimately lead to the killings. 

First, they left the deer carcass for several hours unattended. The bears were essentially baited. It would have been better to have all the necessary gear on hand to haul out or hang the carcass immediately. Upon returning to the deer they encountered three grizzly bears headed their way from some distance. It appears this was not a close-quarters surprise encounter and the hunters had ample time to respond. The hunters were not carrying bear spray and were limited in their response to lethal force as the bears charged. This is just one of too many grizzly encounters where the people involved were limited to or opted for a gun first. Thankfully, in this instance, they managed to not shoot each other as well.

Bear spray has been well documented to be a potent deterrent in aggressive bear encounters — the canisters are light, easy to carry, require less accurate aim, and can be very quickly deployed. US and Canadian researchers found that bear spray was more effective than a gun and stopped aggressive bear behavior in over 90% of the cases they studied. Guns were effective only 67% of the time due mostly to shooting accuracy and that it takes an average of four hits to kill a charging grizzly bear. 

Moreover, the rate of personal injury without using bear spray was found to be the same whether you have a gun or not. You are much less likely to be injured while relying on bear spray. 

For too long these professed self-defense grizzly killings have been dismissed by Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the media and the hunting community as par for the course. There appear to be no consequences even when the shooters’ behavior is responsible for and clearly provoked the attack. Bears should be allowed to be bears in their dwindling habitat and should not need to conform to our pursuits. Certainly, encountering a human in their habitat should not be a capital offense. The self-defense argument often doesn’t hold water. It’s akin to jumping in front of a moving car and claiming self-defense after shooting the driver.

In 2019 a petition was submitted to the state to require carrying bear spray while hunting in grizzly territory. That petition was rejected by Fish, Wildlife and Parks, who too often shows little concern for the deaths of grizzly bears. In that same year the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission failed to act on a similar petition submitted by seven conservation groups. I advocate for legislation that mandates carrying bear spray while hunting and traveling in grizzly territory and assessing stiff penalties for not using it as a first response to an aggressive bear encounter.

We are all visitors in our public lands. We should be grateful to have them and not make ourselves even more unwelcome guests. Travel slow, minimize our impact, and always carry bear spray. It will save lives.

— Chris Gotschalk, Ferndale

Federal shutdown

Thank God it’s over.

Forty-one days of increasing pain and dysfunction was enough. Democrats made the point: health care needs to be fixed; ending the Obamacare subsidies to give tax breaks to the elite and super rich is not just bad policy, it’s despicable.

President Trump and his minions have taken a hatchet to the federal government. Letting it slowly bleed out with a continued government shut down was not going help the healing process.

Reporter Hailey Smalley’s story (Shutdown caps off year of exhaustion, confusion for region’s federal workers, Nov. 7) poignantly illustrates the damage done during Trump’s first 10 months of chaos. Among the concessions gained, at least in the Senate, is a mandate that dedicated public servants furloughed or terminated during the shutdown get back pay and reinstated. Unfortunately it leaves out thousands of workers, such as Hailey’s subject, terminated by DOGE. Legislation languishing in the House Oversight and Government Reform committee could fix that, if only the MAGA-mad majority would agree.

Juxtapose Hailey’s shutdown story with a letter to the editor the same day praising Trump/DOGE “cutting governmental waste, fraud and abuse.” What waste? What fraud? What abuses? Then multiply the dedication and hard work of this single forest service employee by thousands of federal workers who have been fired, retired or left a corrupt administration, and it’s obvious that the task of rebuilding what’s been torn down is daunting, if not impossible; not unlike restoring the East Wing of the White House.

Keeping the government shut down was not going to fix any of these problems. Repairs will come when the millions of people who have been harmed by this administration’s policies vote the despicables out of office.

— Roger Hopkins, Columbia Falls