Canadian authorities insist on pursuing charges against a man for defending his son from a grizzly bear attack.
“He was 16 yards away, actually, when I shot him. It’s not fun being attacked by a grizzly bear, that’s for sure.”
Lucas said he has fully co-operated with the investigation. He even rode by horseback three hours to his truck to charge his cellphone and call authorities about the death.
“They’re wanting me to become accountable for killing that bear,” he said. “I wonder who would be accountable if my son was dead or I was dead?”
You think the life of your kid means anything to government bureaucrats? You’re dirt to them. There’s a dead bear on their hands, and someone is going to pay.
There’s a quote later in the article that reinforces the truth that animal rights activists consider the lives of animals to be more precious than the lives of people.
“The executive director of Defenders of Wildlife Canada applauded the decision to lay charges. Jim Pissot said he is encouraged to see the province doing its due diligence to protect the species.
“It seems . . . this person could have taken a number of alternate actions to protect his safety, and shooting the bear was unnecessary,” Pissot said. “We likely have fewer than 320 bears in the province outside of parks. Every single bear is critical at this point.””
Bears are critical, but children aren’t. Hell, you can’t throw a rock without hitting some kid somewhere, so screw them.
His mistake was calling the authorities and trying to do the right thing. Bureaucrats do not care about you. They care about what they control and how to enforce it. Only carrying out their mission can they justify themselves. If their job is bear protection, standing up for the bears is what they will do. Even while the bear is munching on your kid’s leg. “He must be hungry due to our encroachment on his habitat! Let’s help him home gently once he’s done.”. Your kid’s leg does not enter into the equation.
You ever wonder if there was a fledging Mammoth Preservation Board during Neolithic times? Og standing there thumping, “Mammoth good, our rocks bad. Save Mammoth!” while the glaciers retreated.
Pissot (how appropriate) wasn’t there. If I’m carrying a gun and I’m attacking in the woods by anything with four legs and sharp claws/teeth, I’m getting home, letting the adrenaline wear off, hug my kids for a couple days and then consult a lawyer before I dial a single number.
The old adage, “If you shoot a bear in the woods, does anyone else know?”. In Canada, the answer is “No, unless you tell them.”.
Remember, in Canada it is unlawful for you to use force to defend yourself in your own home unless faced with a unquestionable threat to your life. And even then, they still might charge you. Things have not improved in the time since I left.
I think the right course of action would have involved a shovel and silence.
The Canadian Outdoor Heritage Alliance has published critical articles about similar incidents (wildlife killing hikers, etc) in their newsletter.
http://www.coha.net/
…they’re not happy about their own government’s policies either.
Yeah I don’t understand why he told them. When a bear falls in the woods, no one is going to hear it. If there were people around to hear it, it wouldn’t be grizzly country, would it?
A shovel?? I buried a St Bernard once – I sure wouldn’t want to dig a hole big enough for a gizzly!
Six months to collect evidence against this man that was protecting his son from an attack is ludicrous. Hell they don’t spend that much time on the average murder of a citizen. Talk about ways to protect yourself from bear attacks by education, get serious, this bear was on the attack according to the father. It is similar to everything else in Canada, if you are being beat, robbed, shot, raped you cannot protect yourself because you will be charged if you defend yourself. It will have to get a lot worse before the people will finally challenge these granola crunching commies on a different playing field. We will have to hand out pamphlets to the granola crunching beurocrats on how to protect themselves.
Well, no, they actually don’t give a damn about your child’s life, or yours, or anyone else’s. That’s why they have the scintillating system that rations medical care,regardless of need or resources.
The most curious thing about this, to me, is that, “Lucas was part of a hunting party…”, and yet one of the charges against him was, “failing to ensure a firearm in a wildland provincial park was unloaded and fully encased”.
I’ll just bet that hunting up in Canada is quite an experience.