Hunter may have killed "Hope" the bear cub

[45nut]

MINNEAPOLIS (The Blaze/AP) — Researchers fear a hunter may have killed a black bear named Hope who became famous when her birth in northeastern Minnesota was broadcast live to a worldwide audience over the Internet.

Lynn Rogers, senior biologist with the North American Bear Center and its affiliated Wildlife Research Institute, said Monday that Hope was last seen Sept. 14.

Rogers is waiting to hear from the Department of Natural Resources whether a hunter registered killing a bear matching the description of Hope. He said the local game warden told him he’d need to seek clearance from other DNR officials to release the information.

The center installed a camera inside Lily‘s den and thousands of people watched over the Internet as Hope’s mother, Lily, give birth two winters ago.

Hope did not have a radio collar but often roamed with Lily, whose collar showed she visited the hunter’s bait station three times – on Sept. 15, 16 and 17. “Then she left and never returned to it. And Hope was never seen again,” Rogers said.

Lily’s Facebook page has over 132,000 fans and word of Hope’s potential demise has generated hundreds of postings on it, mostly from mourners and opponents of hunting. People in 132 counties and students at over 500 schools have been following the lives of Lily, Hope, and Lily’s youngest cub Faith, Rogers said. He said some teachers called him in tears over the weekend, asking what they should tell their students.

“There was so much we wanted to learn from this family,” Rogers said.

Rogers said he knows the hunter who maintained the bait station, and knows he would not shoot a radio-collared bear, which is legal but officially discouraged in Minnesota. He said the hunter answered some questions via email but did not say if he shot Hope.

“I‘m figuring I’ll never release his name,” Rogers said, adding that the center’s goal is to “peacefully coexist with hunters. … We just want to know what happened and go on from there.”

Still, Rogers said he has to wonder if the hunter deliberately sought out Hope. He said the hunter has posted messages before on a Facebook page with around 50 fans called “Lily: a bear with a bounty,“ where some postings last week spoke of ”Hope jerky” or Hope cooked in a crockpot.

“It’s disappointing to see people without a care about science, education and the region,” Rogers said.

Hope and Lily’s territory is far away from a forest fire that has blackened over 146 square miles east of Ely, but Rogers said the same drought conditions that fueled the fire also dried up this year’s wild berry crop, making hungry bears more likely to feed at bait stations. But he expressed doubt that Hope’s contacts with him and other researchers made the bear too trusting. He said hunters tell him the center’s research bears are actually more cautious about bait, though he doesn’t know why.

Minnesota’s bear hunting season opened Sept. 1. Bait stations are legal but must be registered. An estimated 9,200 hunters took a total of 2,699 bears last year for a success rate of 29 percent, according to DNR figures. The DNR is mandated to provide bear hunting opportunities and reducing bear-human conflicts is one reason, DNR spokesman Scott Pengelly said.


Well, if that don't beat all. Kind of reminds me of an elementary school in Cali that adopted two seals that had been caught in some kind of oil spill. They cleaned them and got them ready to return them to the wild. When they released them into the ocean, two killer whales caught them and tossed them into the air them ate them in front of the whole school.

It taught them a real lesson about nature kind of like the bear story. Really, a bear with a facebook page. WTH have we become.

[geds]

Since I don't have a Facebook account, does that make the bear more human than me?..........hmm?

[45nut]

No, just more PC and socially connected.

[Bobitis]

Ok, it's a bit crass I admit.

Hows that hope workin for ya?

Seems like a fitting analogy tho...

[H-D]

seems to me like they would do that in a protected area not a public hunting area what did they expect? on the other hand my neighbors back home have 3 deer that come in their yard all the time they bait them there to show their grandkids I would never think of killing "their" deer even though they cross my land getting there, because its an a-hole kind of thing to do, and I do not think crap like that is funny ... hope jerky...makes me wonder what else people would do just because they can get away with it...

[watsisname]

Only good bear is a dead bear.

[Bobitis]

Who are we to say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kcKCYoTZF8

I mean, if we can scream for the old growth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElJFYwRtrH4

Why do we not mourn the veggies? We mourn the life of rocks, but not the flora? The incredible life of rocks. Or is some plant life more worthy of consumption?

Make up yer lives greenies. It's food or it isn't.

Fi..., Fi..., were King...

[H-D]

if carrot juice is murder then is washing with antibacterial soap murder?

[cycloneman]

Originally Posted by H-D

if carrot juice is murder then is washing with antibacterial soap murder?

Im just a killing machine

[cycloneman]

Originally Posted by 45nut

MINNEAPOLIS (The Blaze/AP) —

Hope did not have a radio collar but often roamed with Lily, whose collar showed she visited the hunter’s bait station three times – on Sept. 15, 16 and 17. “Then she left and never returned to it. And Hope was never seen again,” Rogers said.

Obviously Hope has been abducted by alien life form and taken into outer space. Right now Hope is being examined and has a probe sticking out of its backside.


Lily’s Facebook page has over 132,000 fans .[/I]

The bear has a facebook page? With 132K fans? Fitting I can't enough friends on the internet to send messages to the mayor of New Orleans to request him to pay me for a job i did months ago. But this bear who cant read, write, or speak Spanish has a facebook page. **** me. I wish i had killed the bear. I would get on utube and bbq the bear burgers with worstchesire sauce and eat it in front of 132K fans. But before I ate the burger I would read a scripture out of the Bible. Then I would eat the burger with a beer and afterward I would smoke me a cigar,

[Bobitis]

Originally Posted by H-D

if carrot juice is murder then is washing with antibacterial soap murder?

I guess it depends on yer interpretation.

Some folks say it's great. Some say it weakens yer immunities. There's evidence on both sides, so who's right?

Kinda like H1N1. Vaccinate or not?

More folks died from the regular flu then than hyped up one.

[jim summers]

To me if the bear didn't have some kind of identifier on it or something to make a hunter pause and think the situation over then the bear is fair game.

[berto64]

I agree, Jim.

[HunterAlpha1]

what if Hope had been killed by a wolverine, another bear, or a wolf pack? would people have gone batsh*t if it'd been another animal instead of a human?

[jstgsn]

CLEARWATER, Florida -- It started out as a day with so much joy and hope but officials with the Clearwater Marine Aquarium say it ended in heartache.

Just three hours after releasing a bottlenose dolphin back into the wild, it was attacked by sharks and euthanized a short time later.

"We're at a loss for words," said Diane Young with the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

Dunham, as the dolphin was called, turned up last December near Anclote Key. Officials say he was sick and emaciated, but after months of rehab he was ready to be returned to the Gulf.

Jeni Hatter, the spokeswoman for the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, says Dunham was attacked twice by at least two different sharks after he was released Tuesday morning. Hatter says several scientists were monitoring Dunham with a VHF radio transmitter at the time he was attacked.

"It went from a very glamorous day to a very tragic day very quickly" said David Yates the CEO of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

Brent Winner with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says shark don't normally attack a healthy dolphin, but he says they will occasionally go after a sick or injured one.

"The reality is in Tampa Bay or in Florida there are sharks in the water and they are there all year round, various species, various sizes and doing what sharks do" Winner said.

Officials with Clearwater Marine Aquarium say this is the 11th documented shark attack on a dolphin since 2006.

[HunterAlpha1]

i guess not

[graehaven]

IF the hunter in question posted messages on facebook that ran the sarcastic gamut of "taking out Hope," then, he's just as much of a jackwagon as those who are friends of the "bear" on its facebook page.

I'm all for hunting - but don't be an idiot about it.