Shoot at will, there are plenty of grizzlies

I have a daughter about the same age as Joe Lucas's son, Kyle. We have spent plenty of time in the field watching both grizzly and black bears. And I have been charged to within 20 metres by a sow with two tiny cubs-of-the-year because of my own stupidity.

But my stupidity in that case was nothing compared to Roper Joe Lucas, who carried no bear spray in grizzly habitat and kept a camp that was so messy it would have sent Andy Russell into a rage. Instead of taking the necessary precautions and basing his decisions on a MODERN understanding of bear behaviour, he just went ahead and shot, broadside, from long distance, a very valuable, cub-producing member of Alberta's threatened grizzly bear population because he thought it posed a threat to the life of his son.

Puh-lease.

He may be able to fool the judge and the rest of the urban public who have never even seen a grizzly bear, but he can't fool me or any bear biologist who has spent more than a season in the field. Clearly, Judge Reilly hasn't been keeping up on the research, relying instead on the journals of ancient explorers from the nineteenth century. A simple Google search would have provided more than enough information to find Lucas guilty of reckless endangerment and the wanton killing of a threatened species (if only the government would list it is as such).

To be fair, Judge Reilly has a long-standing reputation for making good decisions based on good 'ol Alberta "common sense," but this time he stepped over the line into mythology and nonsensical sense. I always thought that judges were supposed to rule on the evidence set out before them, not their own personal "opinions" about the matters at hand. To think that Judge Reilly, because he "lives in the mountains," would know more about grizzly bear behaviour than Dr. Mike Gibeau and the other experts that testified on behalf of the dead (some might say "murdered") grizzly bear is ridiculous.

Judge Reilly's comments in this and other newspaper articles indicates he has very little understanding about grizzly bear behaviour. I could enlist any number of bear biologists and ethologists to provide a litany of evidence that would all but prove that the bear in question was not a threat to Roper Lucas and his son. The fact their camp was full of unsecured attractants and they weren’t even carrying bear spray indicates they have absolutely no respect for the environment in which they live and work. That alone should have earned them a stiff penalty.

This is a blatant example of the old school, frontier mentality that allows uninformed "mountain men" like Lucas to kill grizzly bears at will. Had this been in the U.S., where wildlife management and prosecution is actually based on science and evidence, Lucas would be facing a $5,000 fine. Not so in Alberta, where even the judges can't see beyond the stereotypes and mythologies we ascribe to ourselves.

I expected more from you, Judge Reilly. This ruling sets a precedent allowing anyone with a gun to shoot a grizzly on a whim. Shame on you. As for you Lucas, I hope this is a lesson to you. If you're going to take your son into grizzly country, spend the fifty bucks on a can of bear spray and keep your camp clean. And leave your rifle at home. That way you can teach him what it means to be a "mountain man" in the twenty-first century.