On May 8, Jeremy Hill of Athol, who lives on 20 acres of very isolated territory near the Canadian border and raises pigs (yes, this is important), found a mother grizzly and her cubs foraging for pigs on his property. He shot one of the cubs dead (grizzly bear cubs are large, vicious animals). He claims to have done it to protect his children, but they were all in the house at the time. Grizzlies are federally protected wildlife in the Lower 48. They dismissed the case, and now our wonderful congressional delegation is trying to make it easier to shoot a grizzly and claim self-defense.
Link to part of the story:
http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_65972651-9003-5b14-b4e6-730e29ff6b8a.htmlYesterday, two Nevada residents were hunting in the Buckhorn Mountain area. Get a map and look at the point where Montana, Idaho and Canada all touch; that's where these guys were hunting. They were looking for black bear, which are legal to hunt. One of the pair saw a bear, thought it was a black bear and fired on it, hitting it. It was a young boar grizzly. These two geniuses then went into an area of heavy cover looking for this thing, which is not a real bright idea when you're going after a wounded black bear and it's suicidal when you're actually chasing a wounded grizzly. The bear killed the guy who didn't shoot him; the person who DID shoot him in the first place, managed to get enough rounds into the bear that it died.
http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_0de42edc-6364-5db4-a588-130316c54219.htmlThey're not sure yet if the shooter will be prosecuted, but if they don't prosecute him for killing an endangered species and for negligent homicide, they may as well make Uncle Jimbo from South Park the new mascot of the Idaho Department of Fish and Wildlife.