{"id":46,"date":"2011-03-11T22:52:54","date_gmt":"2011-03-11T22:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/?p=46"},"modified":"2011-03-12T01:26:13","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T01:26:13","slug":"shooting-of-collared-research-black-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/shooting-of-collared-research-black-bears\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting of Collared Research Black Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In letters to the editors of local newspapers Tom Landwehr, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, revealed his firm beliefs and displayed his lack of understanding of the situation and a lack of critical thinking ability.
\nMr. Landwehr firmly believes the shooting of collared research animals during the normal Black Bear hunt is the best approach. One usually believes something or one believes something else. I suppose gritting ones teeth or sweating during one’s belief may seem to some as MORE or STONGER belief than AVERAGE. To me, it implies he is RELALLY trying to convince himself along with everyone else. He also does not explain why the shooting of collared bears is a good idea. He does make many excuses for such activities. We may be able to forgive him as he may still be a bit woozy from the “dizzying array of issues” he has had to endure during his first six weeks on the job. And, in such fury, it may be easier to keep the status quo than thoroughly analyzing the benefits of both alternatives. It may be easier to keep things as they are, but it may not be the best for all concerned to do so.
\nMr. Landwehr belittles public emotion on the issue and sees research desires opposed to pragmatism as well as private interests against the public good. Since he doesn’t explain how this is so, I believe most would not see these as diametrically opposed. The type of research Dr. Lynn Rogers does is pragmatic, yes interesting and popular. No telling how useful in might be to the state. The DNR is so parochial about its own type of population management “science” it can’t see any other science. To say it isn’t useful to the management of Minnesota’s, DNR ruled, black bear population is a moot point. The DNR does that type of research. Dr. Rogers’ research is beneficial to the public in ways apparently incomprehensible to the DNR and Mr. Landwehr and yes it is popular, very popular. It does not appear that Mr. Landwehr has looked at the positive economic benefit of Dr. Rogers research to the Ely area and possibly also the Orr area, and its bear center. This is not just an Ely “thing,” Dr. Rogers research is rapidly becoming a worldwide event. The DNR might want to capitalize on that popularity for the benefit of Minnesota by becoming a bit more cooperative in this popular movement.
\nMr. Landwehr thinks that his department could not enforce a no-shoot policy. But, he suggests that Dr. Rogers approach Minnesota politicians to pass a bill protecting the bears. I fail to see how that would make enforcement any easier. If the DNR is forced, by law, to enforce the non-shooting of collared research animals then the DNR could enforce that law. Seems to me the non-enforceability varies depending on the motivation. Where there is a will, there is a way. Presently there is no will.
\nAs far as the visibility of collars, that is a totally bogus argument. Unless a hunter is shooting at sounds and at times when it is not legal to hunt, or fails to properly identify his target, it is not possible to accidentally shoot a collared and brightly flagged black bear. If a hunter is that unable to distinguish his target he is a danger to everyone in the woods. It appears Mr. Landwehr is more concerned about protecting this even smaller population .11% of MN bear hunters (or, .002% of the MN population) from whatever penalties would be assessed than he is in protecting the .24% of the black bear population in Minnesota that is collared. “..singling out individual bears for protection is not a policy I support.” How does he equate a policy of protection of a subclass of a valuable public resource as singling out individuals? Yet sees nothing wrong with singling our a smaller percentage of the human population for protection (that small group of hunters who pay no attention to the DNR educational programs and prefer to hunt, choose, and kill valuable collared, flagged research bears). The longer Landwehr talks the less sense he makes.
\nDue to the firmness of his beliefs I do believe that we will need to contact as many politicians in MN as possible and explain why the shooting of collared black bears is such a negative for Minnesota and how positive it could be for Minnesota to have a policy or law prohibiting the shooting of collared bears. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In letters to the editors of local newspapers Tom Landwehr, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, revealed his firm beliefs and displayed his lack of understanding of the situation and a lack of critical thinking ability. Mr. Landwehr firmly believes the shooting of collared research animals during the normal Black Bear hunt is the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[147,29,143,28,27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elyminnesota.com\/elybuzz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}