Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Self defence-bears -laws-shooting

Yesterday, I read a very interesting thread on HBC concerning the ethics and legalities of shooting an animal "out of season" when said animal is attacking you, as in one of the ever-increasing Grizzly attacks here in B.C. So, I thought that this might be an interesting discussion for the potentially wider Campfire-Canada crew and also it would help get us away from the problems many of us are tired of.

You are armed, fishing in the summer, when a Grizzly attacks you, so, you shoot and kill this bear.

NOW, would you report this immediately to the local Conservation Officer or other appropriate authorities in your jurisdiction, OR, would you shoot, shovel and shutup?

Ethics,, experiences, personal beliefs/cultural practices, WHAT do/would YOU do???

Please, let's avoid the interpersonal crap that has plagued this forum recently, OK?

Shoot and report. If the shoot is deemed good through a proper investigation, then the hide can be salvaged by ASRD (in Alberta) and used for educational purposes. If you SSS, then are caught, you will be convicted of poaching. If the shoot is deemed illegal, well..... you survived and can still appeal it. It will come down to your threat level and how you honestly dealt with it. A dead bear at 100 yards/meters, you panicked and are in trouble would be my take. Dead bear within 20-30 yards/meters, you are probably ok. I'm not a legal dude but that would be my comfort zone. I had a griz charge to just outside 30 yards a few years ago, came close to shooting but he stopped. We both "walked away" from that one. Serious pucker factor though.

I experienced an event similar to this about 14 years ago except I was sheep hunting. We had a sow grizzly with 2 cubs come into our camp in the middle of the day and proceeded to run us out of camp. It was raining and we had just put our rifles in the tents not 5 minutes before. To make a long story short, we eventually had to shoot the sow in self defense and at less than 10 yards. My buddy asked me what I wanted to do with her, I looked at him with a puzzled look and said, what do you mean what do I want to do with her? He said, do you want to bury her and be done with it or skin her and pack her skull and hide back to base camp? There never was a question of what I wanted to do but to have him ask me that, I was dumbfounded to say the least. How could someone shoot an animal, in season or out, and just bury it? To me, that is a total lack of respect towards that animal and I would NEVER just bury it and forget about it. Even to this day the memory of having to kill that bear still haunts me....could I have done something differently or did I do the right thing? I replayed that event over and over in my head and in my mind, I did what I had to do to survive. As an aside, the cubs were at least 2 year olds and were almost as big as she was, we never saw them again after the sow sent them away running.

kute

I had one come at me up in the Buckinhorse river when I went back in the morning to retrieve a moose.Had to kill him phoned the warden he came out and not much was said.When I get this burner set up I'll post some pics.

I guess I might be different than most, perhaps due to my not having as much faith in "the system" as some might have. I know of too many good Canadians who thought they were doing the right thing - only to end up being prosecuted by some over-zealous officer of the law, who might have been motivated by a desire to impress his superiors or whatever. These individuals were subjected to all manner of high intensity questioning and in the end were treated unfairly. If all officers of the law, were good men, fair minded, and trying to do the best for me, and society at large - then I wouldn't have to worry. But, unfortunately, every official working to enforce the laws of the land - isn't like that.

I have had to shoot bears (plural) to defend my life.

If, my life long experience with guns, wildlife and my hunting experience, is going to be called into question, (and it will) and if I am going to get grilled, as to if I could have let the charging bear get closer, (as I will, in the safety and security of an interegation room - after the fact) or be questioned as to why I didn't try my bearspray first - why should I subject myself to that?

What good can come of it?

If I, in good conscience, did what I thought I needed to do, to save my own life, or the lives of my children, or for that matter - even my dog, then I nothing good can come from "turning myself in." A persons conduct is ethical - or it isn't. If it IS, no one else needs to judge you.

As a compromise, to the three "S" solution, (shoot, shovel and shut-up) which I'll still use on my own property, in the wilds, a person could make an anonymous phone call to the closest wildlife official (from a payphone) along with a brief explanation as to why it happened, and the GPS coordinates of where the kill occured. Some good may actually come of that.

In Alaska no one gets prosecuted for a DLP bear shooting. The instant they say "I was scared" they have met the criteria for it. Last year a bear was killed at "extended" attack range... From behind... And they still did not prosecute. (said they thought they hit it and therefore kept shooting.)
art

Bella Twin was barely over 4 feet tall but when a huge grizzly crashed through the wall of her shack she shot him dead with her deadly 22. The time was 1953 and the place was Swan hills, Alberta. The skull was measured at 16 6/16 by 9 11/16 Boone and Crocket (26) and is in the record books. There is black and white photo of a huge pelt aprox 9 feet x 9 feet and her standing in front with her pea shooter. The story can be found in a book by Bill Burns called (A history of Lesser Slave Lake) Alberta Recreation and Parks. Unfortunately the Swan Hill Grizzly is now extinct.

Does that mean there are no Grizzly Bears at Swan Hill now OR was it some sub-species of GBear???

My understanding, was that the earliest historic records showed that the Swan Hills grizzly was believed to be a distinct sub-species, thought to be meaner and bigger, on average. I remember reading that some scientists surmised that it may, in fact, have had a closer relationship to the extinct "Cave Bear" than other grizzlies, and seemed to grow larger than other bears who were blessed to live in areas with superior nutrition.

It's a fascinating topic, and if anyone knows more, I'd be interested. Perhaps, I'll see if I can "Google up" more.

Here's what I found:

http://www.brassmonkeyproductions.com/grizzly/Part3.html

""NOW, would you report this immediately to the local Conservation Officer or other appropriate authorities in your jurisdiction, OR, would you shoot, shovel and shutup?""

We have to be careful when having these types of discussions, for legal reasons. If you admit to SS&shutup your admission could be used to gain a prosecution....if you suggest that to SS&shutup is the way to go, you could be prosecuted for counselling someone to break the law.

You are being monitored...govern yourselves accordingly.

Much as I hate to be where I am on this, I lean with BC Brian about not trusting the good faith and good will of law enforcement, on either side of the border, but especially in Canada. I've never had a citation, but have had some unpleasant, degrading, and downright silly experiences with CO's that brought me to the place where I do not trust them. I know two cases where people made a mistake, reported themselves and were punished far more than most poachers get.

Ontario and sometimes B.C. are known in my circles for being unreasonable when it comes to interpreting and enforcing game laws, and so hard on self reported violations that they discourage anyone from being honest. I know a couple of exceptions to that, but I don't count on getting a fair shake. Some officers use common sense and are fair. Which one will you or I get?

What would I do? I'd probably report it. It might depend a bit on the fuller circumstances of when, where, who is present, etc. and I admit that is waffling.

I can definately relate to this paragraph. I did the "RIGHT" thing once and was drilled hard for it. I won't relate the whole story, but I will say I had done nothing wrong under the law. I was simply reporting my harvest of a legal game species and was harshly interrogated in a "guilty until proven innocent" manner. After my story checked out to a "T" with my hunting partner, while I sat in the CO's office, I was then given a less than sincere "congratulations on your (species here)." The icing on the cake was as I was walking out the door, the CO says, "Just between you and me, did you really shoot your (animal) legally."
I said "yep", but looked at him with a look of "Do you really think after how you treated me, that I would confess to you, if I were guilty"

I have shot a bear in self defense, but it happened to be in an open season and I had a tag, so I didn't report it. Based on my experience with our local CO though, I wouldn't think less of someone for not reporting the killing of animal in defense of their health/safety. Human life is far greater than that of any animal, no matter how rare/precious that animal may be.

Every year in B.C. I hear of more and more people having run ins, with bears especially, and in alot of these cases the people involved put themselves in highly elevated risk by letting the bear harrass them unchecked, simply because they feared dealing with the CO's after the fact. That is just wrong; aggressive bears should be shot, reported with out fear of "quota seeking CO's" and sold at auction to benefit conservation projects. If the hunter isn't allowed to keep an animal shot in self defense, it removes the "kill for profit" element and we would get a far more accurate reading on just how many human aggressive bears are shot in self defense yearly.
I would be willing to wager that Grizzlies especially, get the SSS treatment alot more often than they're reported, due to their "Special" interest among anti groups. I have read many articles of surviving bear attack victims, being phoned at home and harrassed by people they didn't know, who blamed them for being attacked(even though the victims did nothing to provoke the bear) and causing the death of a bear at the hands of CO's.

RO

I will add this for all the guys who have dealt with an aggressive bear and didn't shoot it for whatever reason. I'm not talking about walking up on a bear guarding a carcass or getting between a sow and cubs, I'm talking about a bear that is given the right of way and instead of moving on, bluff charges and/or displays aggressive behaviour after it is made obvious that you are a human.

How would you feel if you let an obviously dangerous bear walk and then found out that the next person that encountered that same bear and gave it the same space/respect that you did, got killed because they had no gun to defend themselves?
What if the next person that encountered that bear was a family member? Something to think about.


I hunted an area years ago that was a known dump site for bears from Jasper and Banff National park. I can tell you from experience, that there is nothing more scary than a standoff with a grizzly sporting an ear tag. I have no idea how many times that bear was handled, but I can most certainly attest to its lack of fear of humans. For the record, that bear walked, but it should have been destroyed before I ever encountered it. I absolutely hate reading newspaper articles of problem bears that keep getting relocated until someone gets seriously mauled/killed.

RO

The story I read in Outdoor edge (?) was that shee and her partner were in thee bush on two different dog teams.
Apparantly she hit it 7 times in thhe head with 22shorts.
They had a pic of the skull in the article.
Anybody know the correct facts?
Cat

Yeah I've heard many different versions of the story also through the years. One story I heard was that she was sleeping in a tent in the middle of a berry patch in the middle of afternoon and the bear wanted her containers of berries within. She awoke to the snorting of a grizzly poking it's head in. Another story I heard was she was cooking and the bear invited himself in. But none the less the fact is she shot it with a 22 through the eye and into the brain. I don't believe a follow up shot would have been needed unless it kept thrashing around for along time. I don't think a bear would stand there posing while you shoot 7 times in it's head with a single shot 22. Think about it????

Yeah, I've heard a different version of that story too. She was in the berry patch and saw it coming, so she hid real close and ambushed it by sticking the 22 barrel beside it's head before it figured out where she was.

As far as the original question, it's tough. People in this area have asked the CO what to do and been told, "if it's a problem bear, do what you have to", but I don't want to hear about it afterwards.

They are usually pretty reasonable in this area, and I know I'd report it. I had to ask myself the same question regarding cougars in the last month, as we had one hanging around with lots of pets getting killed in the area. Thankfully it didn't misbehave here so I'll never know how it would have been handled.

Cariboo kid. If she ambushed that bear she must have big f**kin balls because I sure the hell wouldn't ambush a grizz with a 22.

I saw a published story about a fellow hunting west of Sundre Alberta. He claimed to have been attacked by a sow grizzly and 2 grown cubs. He killed them all, and reported it. The CO'S took him back to the seen and made him help pack the bears out, then charged him. He spent the next year or so in court, and was eventually acquited. I imagine he spent afortune on legal costs.

I've made it a point to get to know my local CO, and that gives me alot of comfort when discussing "grey areas" of the law. If conservation officers know you as one of the good guys it goes along way towards reasonable treatment.

We don't have grizzlies here, so this is a theoretical question for me, but there's been a few times I wish I had a rifle along on fishing trips in black bear country. Most CO's here would be fair, I think. Bears are also not very highly regarded by the public in Saskatchewan, I think somewhat different than in BC. I think if forced to shoot a bear I'd be in the "report myself" school, but each situation is different....

My dad was fishing with a treaty Indian once, and a bear stole their steaks off the grill while he was cooking them. Dad almost touched it while reaching for the pepper. It hung around all afternoon after that. The guide ended up shooting that bear after they couldn't chase it away and because they didn't have the option of moving camp. The guide had treaty rights so they didn't bother telling the law about the incident. Only time my dad was in favour of special laws for anyone!

I was once with another hunter who mistook illegal game for legal. He shot an illegal very small heifer moose that he honestly thought was a legal calf. He said he would take responsibility if he got caught, so we just tagged it, dressed, & packed it out and ate it. Seemed like the best solution at the time.

I lived for some time in northern BC,I look apon bears much like prairie boys look apon gophers.