I'm baffled by the need to…

I'm baffled by the need to maintain the black bear population with a willingness by the government to allow the hunting of black bears, albeit for a week, in the spring. Killing female bears who will be looking for food after their hibernation to feed themselves and their cubs only increases the chances that along with the female killed, her cubs will be left alone to die. So, each female killed will have much larger ramifications than one bear killed.

I find it troublesome that bears, an important part of biodiversity, are referred to as being harvested. They are not fields of wheat, they are living, breathing, thinking, bonding beings. Every time humans tinker with animal and plant populations things go awry. Instead of looking at quarterly projections, take a step back and look at long term projections. Look at what you mean when you acknowledge that black bears are important to maintaining biodiversity only to allow killing them.

If the interactions between bears and humans is the overarching reason for allowing the hunt, perhaps a better way would be to look at why there are interactions in the first place and mitigating those circumstances rather than using the scorched earth approach of killing and destroying anything that humans find objectionable.

At some point surely someone somewhere has to say that money does not trump life on earth. According to the government's own proposal, the bear hunt is not going to bring in lots of money so why do it and risk having a long-term negative impact on the black bear population? Why can't we leave the bears alone?