Any Excuse to Kill Wild Things

So you drive home one lovely spring day to your home in the eastern Kentucky woods, where the dogwood and redbud are in bloom, and as you pull into your driveway the path from your car to your door is blocked by a black bear, rooting around for food in your garbage cans.

Setting aside for the moment that if you leave your garbage cans anywhere that wild animals can get into them you are too stupid to live outside midtown Manhattan, what do you do?

You could lay on the horn for a while. That won't scare a black bear, but it might irritate her to the point she gives up on the goodies you left as such an inviting banquet in the garbage cans.

But after months in hibernation, she's really hungry, and refuses to leave. And now you've pissed her off, so she comes after you. She can't get into the truck, but she can damage it pretty good and maybe even flip it over. So you pull the shotgun out of the rack and shoot her.

There's not a jury in this state that will convict you. Hell, not a cop that will arrest you.

If you are genuinely threatened by a wild animal in Kentucky, you are legally allowed to defend yourself with deadly force.

But let's say your local black bear has been making an unbearable nuisance of herself. She tramples the vegetable garden, shits in the flowers, terrorizes the dogs. She also is quite the large speciman, which after taxidermy would look deeply impressive in the family room.

She's no threat to you, but you shoot her anyway. Now you're up shit creek without a paddle, because self-defense is one thing, but killing a black bear for decoration just makes you an asshole.

Now you need a special new law that gets you off the hook for killing a black bear as long as you cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die swear you thought it was dangerous.

State Rep. Rick Nelson, D-Middlesboro, said he will be pushing the legislation to protect Kentucky residents from criminal prosecution if they shoot black bears they believe pose a danger.

Nelson said he has received calls from constituents who have been unable to walk from their homes to their cars because of bears ransacking garbage cans or eating from bird feeders and pet food bowls.

“It makes you a prisoner in your own home,” he said. “There seems to be conflicting statutes about what a person can do. Under existing law, if there is a bear on your property, you can actually shoot it, but fish and wildlife folks make the determination if they feel you were justified.”

SNIP

Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources Commissioner Jon Gassett acknowledged in a letter to Nelson that people who are “genuinely threatened with bodily injury from a black bear or any other wildlife species can use deadly force” to protect themselves.

“However, the mere presence of a bear on one's property does not warrant lethal action,” he said.

SNIP

Kentucky opened a hunting season for bears this year, a move pushed by the League of Sportsmen to reinforce the animals' fear of humans. But no bears were killed in the hunt, which was held Dec. 19-20.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources blamed the lack of kills on a winter storm that left up to 12 inches of snow in parts of the mountain region. Bear biologist Steven Dobey said hunters could not get to areas where they likely would have been able to shoot bears.

Read the whole thing.

I have a compromise: you can kill any black bear you come across, anywhere, anytime, for any reason, whether it's dangerous, benign or downright friendly. Just one condition: you have to kill the bear with your bare hands.

First Kentucky Bear Hunt in 100 Years This Weekend

Between expected snow and well-hidden hibernation, at least it's going to be a fair fight.

Bears have become so populous over the past 10 years in southeast Kentucky that the state's first bear hunt in 100 years has been scheduled for this weekend.

As bears have become a sight-seeing attraction and sometimes a nuisance for state parks in Harlan, Letcher and Pike counties, local hunters have been eager to add black bears as a big game animal, said Steven Dobey, bear program manager for the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

SNIP

Dobey estimated that there are about 300 black bears in the core region of Letcher, Harlan and Pike counties, the only three open to bear hunting this year. The population is large enough to withstand hunting, he said.

The animals are a nuisance in some state parks and small towns. Kingdom Come State Park in Cumberland installed additional bear-proof trash cans in June, and four bears have had to be euthanized this year, an unusually high number. Park Manager Rick Fuller said he knows some city housing projects have installed bear-proof dumpsters and cans, too.

SNIP

Three of the four bears euthanized this year were killed because they had become so used to people they were a danger, Dobey said.

"They're really interesting to watch and observe, however when people begin to use the food to lure them in ... it usually ends in the death of the bear," he said.

SNIP

Twenty years ago, no bears were visible in Kentucky, he said, but in the late 1990s, they started reappearing, having been reintroduced in neighboring states. Now they occasionally wander through towns in some Kentucky counties.

The hunt is exciting because of the healthy, booming bear population, Allen said.

"The bears have repopulated on their own in Kentucky," without human intervention, he said, "and that's a big deal right there."