California Legislators Call for Wildlife Official's Resignation

The wildlife official in question is the President of the California Fish and Game Commission. He is a proponent of trophy hunting and was photographed with a dead mountain lion in Idaho. Full story here.

Serial Poachers Devastate Montana

This article describes the devastation being inflicted on Montana's wildlife by serial poachers. It's also an insight into how serial poachers think. I would have thought serial poaching and serial killing were essentially the same, with the difference being the species, but this article says there is a difference.

Brian Golie, FWP game warden in Wolf Creek, .....classifies serial poachers as people who target trophy animals and will do anything to kill them. Serial killers, on the other hand, are people who kill everything they see and simply want to run up a tally. In some instances people kill an animal and cut off its head for the antlers. Others take the entire animal and still others leave the dead animal, although Golie said he's seen people come back months later after poaching an animal to try to recover the antlers.

US Groups Fight to Save Polar Bear Hunts

Now that the species is listed in the US as "threatened," hunters can't import the dead body parts (aka hunting "trophies") in from Canada. Supposedly, environmentalists and animal rights activists have "unfairly made the polar bear into 'the panda bear of North America.'"

Waaaaaaa! (insert crying baby picture here.)

Here's the article from the Globe and Mail.

Trophy Hunters Imperil Polar Bears

I have no sympathy for trophy hunters. They are not hunting for food or for any subsistence whatsoever. It's all about the thrill of the hunt and, sorry to say it, the thrill of the testosterone surge. Perhaps there are female trophy hunters out there too, but I suspect they are in the minority.

Therefore, to me it's a slam dunk as to whether trophy hunters should continue to hunt polar bears. If a species' very survival is threatened, then it is impractical to hunt it for mere entertainment. Every member counts. And I don't believe the argument that Inuit villages will collapse without the revenue from these hunts.

The cost of a trophy hunt can start at $35,000.