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~~brotherbear~~ · 07-03-2016, 05:53 PM

Posts #50 and #51, the collision with the bear *was the attack. The bear retaliated - just to get the story straight.

~~brotherbear~~ · 07-26-2016, 11:39 PM

http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/for...delisting/

Published July 25, 2016
Just days after Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) Vice President Tom Poor informed Interior Secretary Sally Jewell that the OST was calling for a Congressional investigation into the conduct of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in its drive to delist the Yellowstone grizzly bear from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it has been revealed that USFWS contracted multinational oil and gas services group, Amec Foster Wheeler, for the peer review of its delisting rule. Central to Poor Bear’s original complaint are ties between a USFWS grizzly delisting official and trophy hunting juggernaut, Safari Club International, and an apparent connection to multinational energy company, Anadarko Petroleum and Gas.
“I find it shameful,” responds Poor Bear, “and I would urge other tribal leaders and all who care about Mother Earth to stand with us or risk falling for anything,” says the Oglala Vice President. In the OST letter to Secretary Jewell, Poor Bear cited USFWS scientific integrity violations related to the Keystone XL Pipeline, and called into question the impartiality of former Acting USFWS Director, Matt Hogan, who is now central to delisting the grizzly. “It is a conflict of interests when one of USFWS’s deputy directors, Matt Hogan, the official charged with supposedly contacting tribes, is, in fact, a trophy hunter and was formerly Safari Club International’s chief lobbyist to Capitol Hill. It has been revealed that Hogan also has ties to Anadarko Petroleum and Gas, one of the world’s largest energy companies, and one of the largest landowners in Wyoming,” Poor Bear wrote to Jewell.
Before entering the ranks of USFWS, Hogan was Legislative Director for former Secretary of the US Army, Congressman Preston M. Geren III, who retired from Anadarko’s board of directors in 2014. Anadarko describes itself as “one of the largest landowners and leaseholders in the state of Wyoming” and is one of the biggest campaign finance contributors to Wyoming Governor, Matt Mead, and Senator Mike Enzi, Senator John Barrasso, and Representative Lummis of Wyoming’s Congressional delegation, all of whom have aggressively promoted the grizzly delisting agenda and the dismantling of the ESA. Hogan has not responded to emails asking about his connection to Anadarko, but states, “The peer reviewers were selected by an independent, third-party contractor, not by the Service.”

In April, that “independent, third-party contractor,” Amec Foster and Wheeler, appointed Halliburton executive Jonathan Lewis as CEO. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, the godfather of Wyoming politics, was Halliburton CEO from 1995–2000. “This speaks for itself. How can anybody think that a multinational in the energy business run by a former Halliburton executive can execute a credible peer review process of a delisting rule of this magnitude when the agency in question, USFWS, speaks of 28 mines waiting to be developed and become operational in Greater Yellowstone upon the delisting of the grizzly,” says GOAL Chairman, David Bearshield, who called it “brazen” and added that “in light of the revelations” about Amec Foster and Wheeler and Anadarko, he hoped people would take note of what A. Gay Kingman recently warned.
Kingman, one of the most respected leaders in Indian Country and Executive Director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association issued a statement in spring, in which she cautioned, “It is my duty to alert you to what is now a clear and present danger to tribal sovereignty, tribal spiritual and religious freedoms, and self-determination. The conduct of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in accommodating states interests over those of federally recognized Indian tribes in the matter of delisting and trophy hunting the grizzly bear on ancestral tribal and treaty lands threatens irreparable harm to tribal rights if it is not challenged.”

Tribes oppose the delisting of the grizzly bear on the basis of sovereignty, treaty, consultation, and spiritual and religious freedom violations. In a just released statement, Northern Cheyenne President, Llevando Fisher, affirms that delisting will, “negatively impact our Northern Cheyenne culture and the traditional ceremonial practices of which the grizzly bear has a very unique position. As a Sovereign Indian Nation we stand together with the other members of our family of Indian Nations that oppose the delisting of the grizzly bear.”
Anadarko, which made one of the largest settlements in history with the DOJ in 2014, including $1 billion for uranium spills that polluted water on the Navajo Nation, is presently developing gas operations in Mozambique where Amec Foster and Wheeler was recently awarded a massive design and engineering contract for liquefied petroleum gas and gas projects. Mozambique is also a trophy hunters’ haven. In 2015, the World Bank approved a grant to Mozambique, $700,000 of which is to facilitate trophy hunting. Under the grant, 80 permits per year will be issued to hunt elephants, and up to 60 for lions. A World Bank spokesman described trophy hunting as “an important tool” for the management of Mozambique’s “natural assets.” According to GOAL’s Bearshield, “that is exactly the logic USFWS is applying to trophy hunting the grizzly.”
More than fifty federally recognized tribes supported by the Assembly of First Nations oppose the delisting and trophy hunting of the grizzly bear and have coalesced around GOAL Tribal Coalition.

Vice President Poor reiterates that, “delisting the grizzly bear is driven by political special interests, not science, and is about the exploitation of over 2 million acres of land.” For over two years tribes have petitioned USFWS to release the taxpayer funded raw scientific data it claims to have based its decision on. “The data used by the Service in making the proposed Yellowstone grizzly bear delisting rule is available to the public on the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team’s (IGBST) website,” responded Hogan. “The only information not shared with the public is geospacial data,” he claims. “Hogan is either uninformed, disingenuous, or lying outright. Given his background, I suspect it is one of the latter,” counters Dr. David Mattson, a former IGBST biologist, who is regarded as one of the world’s leading grizzly bear biologists.
“This is an example of how man has gone too far,” begins Chief Arvol Looking Horse. “All of us are being affected by this disrespect to Mother Earth, the Life force itself. We pray to the Bear Nation, the grizzly, they help us in ceremonies, and we need that spirit to help us now, to guide us into the future through our ceremonies, so that our children can have this dream and keep this traditional lifestyle going,” concludes the internationally respected spiritual leader, and head of GOAL’s Advisory Council.

~~brotherbear~~ · 08-04-2016, 03:27 PM

I would suppose that this is as good as any place to post this. I am thoroughly enjoying this site; great bunch of posters here. Sanjay has been doing an excellent job. A great many highly knowledgeable people here from whom I have been learning a great deal. What I miss though are the few actual bear enthusiasts that used to be active on the 'the other site' - AVA. I would love to see the occasional visit from Ursus arctos middendorffi, whom ( if I am remembering right ), Peter has actually spent some time with. He has the greatest scientific knowledge of bears of anyone that I know of. I would also greatly enjoy seeing the return of Big Bonns. He was not so much the "scientific type" but was is very "bear savvy" and had over time acquired a huge amount of data and reports. Unfortunately, I never learned his name and have no means of contacting him. So, Polar, a very good poster himself, and myself are the only two bear enthusiasts here.

sanjay · 08-04-2016, 04:44 PM

Why not contact them? I think @peter have still connection with Ursus.
If you guys have any contact please invite them here

peter · 08-04-2016, 06:49 PM

(08-04-2016, 03:27 PM)brotherbear Wrote: I would suppose that this is as good as any place to post this. I am thoroughly enjoying this site; great bunch of posters here. Sanjay has been doing an excellent job. A great many highly knowledgeable people here from whom I have been learning a great deal. What I miss though are the few actual bear enthusiasts that used to be active on the 'the other site' - AVA. I would love to see the occasional visit from Ursus arctos middendorffi, whom ( if I am remembering right ), Peter has actually spent some time with. He has the greatest scientific knowledge of bears of anyone that I know of. I would also greatly enjoy seeing the return of Big Bonns. He was not so much the "scientific type" but was is very "bear savvy" and had over time acquired a huge amount of data and reports. Unfortunately, I never learned his name and have no means of contacting him. So, Polar, a very good poster himself, and myself are the only two bear enthusiasts here.

When I joined the debate on bears and tigers on AVA many years ago, I got a pm from Bonns. We exchanged a few ideas in this way, but it didn't happen often. I don't know why he left the debate after some years, but I remember a post in which he wrote he had started a family. Furthermore, one has to remember the climate had rapidly deteriorated. Bonns was targeted by a tiger poster who later also left the debate. The point to remember is AVA didn't collapse because of the controversy between lion and tiger posters only.

Grahh was one of the most active bear posters when I had joined AVA. He too was involved in clashes and left to start his own forum some years later. Warsaw joined him. I visited the site every now and then and noticed Grahh wasn't very active. Warsaw was, but he was one of the few. The site is still in the air, but my last visit was some months ago.

Warsaw was the one who most often responded to my posts on tigers and bears. Most unfortunately, he, ehh, didn't appreciate my contributions. At the start, he tutored me, but later on the dislike developed into a kind of vendetta. In the end, I had no option but to respond. He later tried to get to some kind of understanding, but by then I was about done. A bit of a pity, as Warsaw has access to good information (Russia) and often featured in interesting debates.

There was another poster who had good information on bears and tigers in Russia. Alexious3, however, left after AVA had exploded. As far as I know, he isn't posting anywhere.

Ursus, who joined AVA a bit later, is different from the others in that he uses a debate as a means to get to a result. One could say his approach was related to his profession (he was a student at the time he participated), but my take is it was a result of his character. When I read he intended to visit relatives in Europe, I invited him to come over. He did. In the three days or so he was my guest, we talked tigers and bears most of the time. As we got along, we discussed starting a forum as well. It didn't happen because graduating took a lot of time, whereas Sanjay made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Bonns, Grahh, Warsaw, Alexious and Ursus all had access to good information and were the most active contributors in threads in which big cats and bears featured. As quite a number of tiger posters participated as well, the conditions to produce were plenty ok. Although a lot of good information was exchanged over the years, the climate never was very friendly. There were different reasons, but if I was to say bears and big cats are natural enemies I would be quite close. Ability is important, but it seems some things are equally important, if not more so. A pity, as quality is the only factor that survives time in the end.

In order to overcome the differences and start a debate on big cats and bears, a forum, apart from strict moderation, needs members interested in good information at all times. Not something else. This is admittedly not easy but if it can be done with lions and tigers, one could say big cats and bears should be in reach as well.

In other words. Anyone interested in a debate on big cats and bears and prepared to refrain from variations on the Republicans vs Democrats game is invited to give it a try.

~~brotherbear~~ · 08-04-2016, 10:22 PM

A debate on Amur tiger vs Amur brown bear would without a doubt need some strict monitoring. As for the posters you mentioned, I am familiar with all of them. I started out as a complete novice, thinking I knew a lot from reading school books and watching nature documentaries. It didn't take me very long to realize just how little I knew. I got pulled into a great many really stupid arguments as you well know. I have learned so much since I first entered these blog sites, but there are others including yourself, Peter, that have so much greater knowledge. I continue learning and I find some pleasant enjoyment in doing so.

~~brotherbear~~ · 08-08-2016, 06:03 PM

http://earthjustice.org/blog/2016-august...-than-gold

View of Mineral Mountain at the entrance to the historic community of Old Chico, a popular tourist destination for those looking for peace and quiet. This will be the access road for drilling rigs and heavy equipment.

*This image is copyright of its original author

~~brotherbear~~ · 08-11-2016, 03:20 PM

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/se...-charging/

Grizzlies are high profile this year.
A lingering winter and late berry crop kept bears in proximity to humans longer than normal, perhaps contributing to a stream of headlines about grizzlies killing people and people killing grizzlies.
Meanwhile, a young lady on a big horse charged out of the pack of grizzly stories near Glacier National Park. In a cloud of dust, the 25-year-old wrangler likely saved a boy’s life while demonstrating that skill, quick-thinking and guts sometimes are the best weapons against a head-on charging grizzly.
On July 30, Erin Bolster of Swan Mountain Outfitters was guiding eight clients on a horse ride on the Flathead National Forest between West Glacier and Hungry Horse, Mont.

“It’s the shortest ride we offer,” she said Wednesday, recalling the incident. “We’d already led two trips that morning. It’s always been a very routine hour-long loop, until that day.”

The group included a family of six plus a vacationing northern California man, who’d booked the trip for his 8-year-old son’s first horse-riding experience.

The young boy was riding Scout, a steady obedient mount, following directly behind Bolster, who was leading the group on Tonk, a burly 10-year-old white horse of questionable lineage.
Tonk isn’t the typical trail mount. Best anyone knows, he’s the result of cross-breeding a quarter horse with a Percheron – a draft horse. Bolster is 5-foot-10, yet she relies on her athleticism to climb into the saddle aboard Tonk.

“He was one of the horses we lease from Wyoming and bring in every year,” Bolster said, noting that she’d picked him from the stable in May to be hers for the season.

“He’s a very large horse – 18 hands high. That intimidates a lot of riders. But I’ve always loved big horses. He’s kind of high-strung and spooky, the largest of our wrangling horses. I like a horse with a lot of spirit, and I was really glad to be on him that day.”

Bolster has accumulated a wealth of experience on and around horses of national and even world class. She started riding at 4 years old, became a pro trainer at 15, graduated from high school at 16 in Roanoke, Va., and ran a riding academy for several years.
Seeking a more laid-back lifestyle, she wrangled in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic before moving to Whitefish three years ago to guide tourists during the summer around Glacier National Park and ski through winter.

“It’s the country, the mountains and the idea of seeing lot of wildlife that appealed to me, ironically enough,” she said.

Bolster quickly racked bear experience, too, although until July 30, it was always at a distance.

“At the peak of the season, we were seeing bears daily,” she said. “The wranglers name them so we can let each other know where they are. Usually the bears just keep feeding in the distance or they run away when we come. Just seeing them is a treat for us and our guests.”

Because they guide around Glacier Park, bear awareness is part of the preparation wranglers get when hired by Swan Mountain Outfitters.

“We go over a lot of wildlife scenarios in our training,” Bolster said. “We learn to watch our horses for signals of possible trouble so we can steer clear.”
That’s the key, she said: Avoid trouble with a moose or a bear.

“We can’t use pepper spray when we’re riding because that could blind the horse,” she said. “And using a gun would spook the horses and probably produce more danger than safety.”

That’s how she went to work that day: a young but seasoned pro rider on a new, huge and spirited horse, unarmed in the wilderness with eight dudes.

“It was a pleasant ride until we came around a corner on the trail and my horse stopped firm and wouldn’t move,” Bolster said. “He never refuses to go, so that caught my attention quick.”

But not fast enough to avoid the spike white-tailed deer that burst out of the brush and glanced off Tonk’s left front shoulder.
As Tonk spun from the impact, Bolster saw a huge grizzly bear crashing through the forest right at the group in pursuit of the deer. Horses panicked and guests grabbed saddle horns for the ride of their lives.

“No amount of training could keep a horse from running from a 700-pound charging bear,” she said.

Seven of the horses sensed the danger, scrambled around and galloped back on the trail toward the barn.

But Scout bolted perpendicular to the trail into the timber packing the 8-year-old boy.

“The deer peeled off and joined the horses sprinting down the trail,” Bolster said. “So the bear just continued running right past me. I’m not sure the bear even knew the roles had changed, but now it was chasing a horse instead of a deer.”

The grizzly was zeroed in on Scout and the boy – the isolated prey in the woods.

Adding to the drama, the boy’s father, an experienced rider, could not convince his horse that it was a good plan to ride to his son’s rescue.
“The last thing he saw over his shoulder as his horse ran away was the grizzly chasing his boy,” Bolster said.

With the bear on Scout’s heels, Tonk’s instinct was to flee with the group of horses. But Tonk responded to Bolster’s heels in his ribs as she spun the big fella around. They wheeled out of a 360 and bolted into the trees to wedge between the predator and the prey.

“The boy was bent over, feet out of the stirrups, clutching the saddle horn and the horse’s neck,” she said. “That kept him from hitting a tree limb.

“But all I could think about was the boy falling off in the path of that grizzly.

“I bent down, screamed and yelled, but the bear was growling and snarling and staying very focused on Scout.

“As it tried to circle back toward Scout, I realized I had to get Tonk to square off and face the bear. We had to get the bear to acknowledge us.

“We did. We got its attention – and the bear charged.
“So I charged at the bear.”

Did she think twice about that?

“I had no hesitation, honestly,” Bolster said. “Nothing in my body was going to let that little boy get hurt by that bear. That wasn’t an option.”

Tonk was on the same page.

With a ton of horse, boulder-size hooves and a fire-breathing blonde thundering at it, the bear came within about 10 feet before skittering off to the side.

But it quickly angled to make yet another stab at getting to Scout and the boy – who had just fallen to the ground.

“Tonk and I had to go at the bear a third time before we finally hazed him away,” she said.

“The boy had landed in some beargrass and was OK. Scout was standing nearby.”
Bolster gathered the boy up with her on Tonk, grabbed Scout’s lead and trotted down the trail.

“The boy was in shock,” she said. “I looked back and could see the bear had continued to go away through he woods, but I had another five or 10 minutes of riding before I got back with the group.”

Not until she reunited with her riders – all OK and standing in various stages of confusion with their horses – did she start to shake.

“I looked at Tonk, and he was wet with sweat and shaking, too,” she said.

She was especially concerned for the boy’s father, who probably suffered the most terror in the ordeal.

“He was fine, and I got my biggest tip of the season,” Bolster said. “My biggest hope is that the boy isn’t discouraged from riding. This was a one-in-a-million event.”
For the next few days, the outfitter shut down the trail rides and Bolster joined other wranglers and a federal grizzly bear expert to ride horses through the area looking for the bear.

“They tracked it for a long way and concluded that it kept going out of the area,” she said. “Judging from the tracks and my description of how high the bear came up on Tonk, the grizzly expert estimated it weighed 700-750 pounds.

“This was a case of us being in the wrong place as a bear was already in the act of chasing its natural prey. He was probably more persistent because he was really hungry.”

Bolster and the other wranglers vowed to have bear spray on their belts to make sure they can defend their guests during breaks on the ground.

“But when you’re riding, the horse is your best protection, if you can stay on,” she said.
“Some of the horses I’ve ridden would have absolutely refused to do what Tonk did; others would have thrown me off in the process. Some horses can never overcome their flight-animal instinct to run away.”

In those minutes of crisis, the big lug of mongrel mount proved his mettle in a test few trail horses will face in their careers.

Tonk’s grit moved Bolster. She wasn’t about to send him back to Wyoming with the other leased horses.

“Two weeks ago, I closed the deal and bought him,” Bolster said as she was wrapping up her 2011 wrangling season.
“After what he did that day, he had to be mine.”

SUNDAY, SEPT. 18, 2011

Polar · 08-11-2016, 10:33 PM

(08-04-2016, 06:49 PM)peter Wrote:
(08-04-2016, 03:27 PM)brotherbear Wrote: I would suppose that this is as good as any place to post this. I am thoroughly enjoying this site; great bunch of posters here. Sanjay has been doing an excellent job. A great many highly knowledgeable people here from whom I have been learning a great deal. What I miss though are the few actual bear enthusiasts that used to be active on the 'the other site' - AVA. I would love to see the occasional visit from Ursus arctos middendorffi, whom ( if I am remembering right ), Peter has actually spent some time with. He has the greatest scientific knowledge of bears of anyone that I know of. I would also greatly enjoy seeing the return of Big Bonns. He was not so much the "scientific type" but was is very "bear savvy" and had over time acquired a huge amount of data and reports. Unfortunately, I never learned his name and have no means of contacting him. So, Polar, a very good poster himself, and myself are the only two bear enthusiasts here.

When I joined the debate on bears and tigers on AVA many years ago, I got a pm from Bonns. We exchanged a few ideas in this way, but it didn't happen often. I don't know why he left the debate after some years, but I remember a post in which he wrote he had started a family. Furthermore, one has to remember the climate had rapidly deteriorated. Bonns was targeted by a tiger poster who later also left the debate. The point to remember is AVA didn't collapse because of the controversy between lion and tiger posters only.

Grahh was one of the most active bear posters when I had joined AVA. He too was involved in clashes and left to start his own forum some years later. Warsaw joined him. I visited the site every now and then and noticed Grahh wasn't very active. Warsaw was, but he was one of the few. The site is still in the air, but my last visit was some months ago.

Warsaw was the one who most often responded to my posts on tigers and bears. Most unfortunately, he, ehh, didn't appreciate my contributions. At the start, he tutored me, but later on the dislike developed into a kind of vendetta. In the end, I had no option but to respond. He later tried to get to some kind of understanding, but by then I was about done. A bit of a pity, as Warsaw has access to good information (Russia) and often featured in interesting debates.

There was another poster who had good information on bears and tigers in Russia. Alexious3, however, left after AVA had exploded. As far as I know, he isn't posting anywhere.

Ursus, who joined AVA a bit later, is different from the others in that he uses a debate as a means to get to a result. One could say his approach was related to his profession (he was a student at the time he participated), but my take is it was a result of his character. When I read he intended to visit relatives in Europe, I invited him to come over. He did. In the three days or so he was my guest, we talked tigers and bears most of the time. As we got along, we discussed starting a forum as well. It didn't happen because graduating took a lot of time, whereas Sanjay made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Bonns, Grahh, Warsaw, Alexious and Ursus all had access to good information and were the most active contributors in threads in which big cats and bears featured. As quite a number of tiger posters participated as well, the conditions to produce were plenty ok. Although a lot of good information was exchanged over the years, the climate never was very friendly. There were different reasons, but if I was to say bears and big cats are natural enemies I would be quite close. Ability is important, but it seems some things are equally important, if not more so. A pity, as quality is the only factor that survives time in the end.

In order to overcome the differences and start a debate on big cats and bears, a forum, apart from strict moderation, needs members interested in good information at all times. Not something else. This is admittedly not easy but if it can be done with lions and tigers, one could say big cats and bears should be in reach as well.

In other words. Anyone interested in a debate on big cats and bears and prepared to refrain from variations on the Republicans vs Democrats game is invited to give it a try.

Will this debate be on another thread upon this forum or a whole other forum?

As of now, I don't really have the energy to debate about "bears vs big cats": over the next week, I will be extremely busy preparing to move into college, and will have little spare time even in college. A debate like that would certainly demand full attention and scientific documentation, so I am not in favor of the idea as of now.

About Ursus, he still posts in Carnivora, although Taipan is getting a bit antsy about his posts because they don't accord themselves to Taipan's posts or ideas. As almost all here know, Taipan banned me, Pckts, brotherbear, malikc6 (how's he?), and numerous other posters who actually post factual, un-biased info about lion and tiger similarities and differences. Ursus (and you, Peter) are the two most intellegent posters I know, regarding scientific research and insights into the lives and physiology of animals.

~~brotherbear~~ · 08-18-2016, 05:29 PM

About hunting. I don't; but I would if I still had family dependent on me and if putting food on the table was really a hardship. I was no stranger to wild foods growing up out in the country in North Carolina.

*This image is copyright of its original author