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Show NOVEMBER 1995 UTAH’S BEARS Is It Sport Or Is ItA charging bandit bear, seeking calm in an otherwise storm of fear and fren- with SHAME? bladders By Steve Lewis he chill night fills with fright and screams fuel the air. A young girl is dragged in a sleeping bag by a Bear hunters gather in a local bar hounds baying and yelping in the background. One talks of traps, bait and hound pursuit, another whines at the loss of the spring bear hunt and one whispers he’s been offered 10 grand to deliver bear gall roaring bear. A to Korea. Pest bears are caught tipping garbage in a rural town and are immediately labeled as ° nuisances and shot. Beleaguered pressed by public ranching officials, interests, Fe Last year, 67 black bears were killed in Utah. BEAR FIGURES Utah black bears vary in color from black to cinnamon, or reddish blonde. Adult bears weigh from 150to-400 pounds and live up to 20 years. Secretive in nature, they prefer to live in dense covered forests and woodlands and feed primarily on vegetation. move Bears in Utah in November runner paces through a Teton mead- for eradication. Activists plead to pre- dens ow serve next six months sleep nourished and is met Campers awake in and their shrinking habi- in tat. For a moment, the talk of bear is the night in as bears ransack warden rushes and blasts ¥ + we the air. Then a burly bureaucrat ambles by and bellows, “What the camp and maul helpless humans A game bears by a mauling grizzly Glacier National Park a sense, folks! Bear? Who non- really cares?” typically enter and spend the in a dormant and warmed deep by a thick layer of fat. They survive this period with no food or water and often emerge from dens in March Photo by Drew Ross April. Apart from females with cubs, or during mating season, black bears are very solitary. Experts speculate that Utah has a thousand black bears, give or take a couple hundred. One side suggests the population is healthy and the other, that it’s sorely depressed. Many bear hunters claim there are close to 2,000 bears statewide, and that 8-to-10 percent, or 150-to-200 of the animals, should 1994, under a limited entry hunt system, 168 Utah hunters killed or Continued on page Lift, y CHALET Zt Ap ON xd -* 3% a Delicatessen Company “Professional Sun Tanning =O: Wolf and RUVA Beds Park City Plaza 1890 Bonanza Dr #103 (801) 655-0777 Salt Lake City 2120 S. 700 East (801) 467-1777 Market « Delicatessen « Café We Offer Professional Lines of Suntanning and Body Lotions HOLIDAY SPECIAL ORDERS em eae CM Bel tiie BREAKFAST ¢ LUNCH ¢ DINNER Daily Specials CATERING Open ¢ PLATTERS Daily ¢ 1492 ¢ GIFT BASKETS Park Ave. ¢ Park City * 649-0090 PAGE 10 “harvested” In 3S << Food Market be annually. 11 |