11/19/2010
A Pennsylvania bow hunter broke the state's record on Monday when he took a 879-pound black bear with a bow in Pike County. The 17-year-old bear is also noteable because it was taken during Pennsylvania's first state-wide archery hunt.
Read the full story at the Pocono Record.
This guy should have just gone hunting parked cars. There's more "sport" in that
the individual who was feeding this bear should be arrested and prosecuted for endangering the lives of the people in the area.
"Fair chase", or many other ideas of sportsmanship, are a human constructs, which have little to do with humane harvesting. The odds of a clean kill over feed is far greater than that under many "open field" scenarios. Plus, in the case of bears, killing a sow with cubs can be be avoided. In this particular case, this old bear was most likely approaching the end of his natural life span and suffered a great deal less than he would have if left to die from natural causes. Having said all that I would not have shot him.
This bear was a "pet" of a man who hand fed this bear since it was a cub. The hunter knew its travel corridor to and from the persons house and shot it that way.
