Courtesy Yellowstone National Park
Scarface, a famous, beloved and much-photographed grizzly bear living in Yellowstone National Park, was shot dead by a hunter in a killing that is being investigated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Another wild animal with a fan base among humans has met a violent end, when Grizzly Bear No. 211—known to his human friends as Scarface—was shot dead near Gardiner, Montana. Scarface was the best known of about 750 grizzlies who call Yellowstone National Park home but who, like the Yellowstone bison, sometimes stray across the invisible lines marking the park on a map.
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This was the context of Scarface becoming a rock star among the grizzly population in Yellowstone National Park. Male grizzlies fight among themselves during mating season and Scarface had sustained injuries over the years that made him easy to pick out of a bear lineup, particularly his damaged right ear. In the ongoing research into the habits of the grizzlies in Yellowstone, Scarface had been captured, collared, and released 17 times.
Scarface did survive to a ripe old age for his species, 25. In his prime, he weighed 600 pounds. He was down to 338 pounds and biologists expected this last winter to be his last. They meant a death from old age, not from gunshots. Social media were full of outrage from biologists and wildlife photographers, for whom Scarface had become a symbol of the species struggling for survival against climate change and the invasion of bear habitat by humans.
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Shooting a grizzly is unlawful except in self-defense, but Scarface had a long history with people that made him an unlikely candidate to attack a photographer or a hunter. Because of the Endangered Species Act violation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has opened an investigation into the circumstances of the shooting. Several photographers, decrying the shooting, declared that Scarface was the most photographed bear in Yellowstone.
Pennsylvania is hunter-mad. Every year I have to patrol my property on the first few days of each season, to explain to gun-toting weirdos that they aren’t welcome to come on my land and kill stuff for their amusement.
The whole hunting thing drives me crazy. “I love nature so much I kill it and bring pieces of it home to gloat over” (serial killer) or “I hunt because it brings me in touch with our hunting ancestors” (spending thousands of dollars for a few pounds of parasite-laden wild animal meat) A few years ago some shitbird was trying to stalk the bobcat that lives in my rockfall, because, you know, bobcats are kinda rare so having one stuffed in your livingroom shows how much you like stuffed bobcats, or some shit like that.
I bet whoever killed the grizz was one of the “oooooooo what a noble beast, let me kill it!” type hunters.
Yeah, plenty of them around here, too. I had to stop myself from seriously hurting one of the junior psychopaths when I caught the little fucker shoving a rifle down into bushes to kill nesting birds (on my property, no less). At least the jackasses know to steer way clear of my place.
I don’t know who killed Scarface, and it’s doubtful anyone will ever know. Even if someone was caught, they’d just scream “self defense!” and get away with it.
Before we met, my wife used to protest against hunters up in northern Wisconsin, and she says there was more than one occasion when one of them took a shot at her car while she was in it. So no, these people have no respect for human life either.
Take care, Marcus. “I thought he was a deer” seems to be a valid defense for straight-up murder in the woods, even if you’re wearing blaze orange and a rotating strobe light.
This is heart-breaking.
Morgan:
It is. What was the point? Scarface didn’t have long to live anyway, so why in the fuck would anyone shoot him? My guess is because they could, nothing more than that.
Farewell, old bear, and may you always chase unarmed humans in your sleep.
Take care, Marcus. “I thought he was a deer” seems to be a valid defense for straight-up murder in the woods, even if you’re wearing blaze orange and a rotating strobe light.
I hate the crawling sensation between my shoulder blades when I walk back to my truck, leaving 2 or 3 pissed off (possibly tipsy) hunters standing behind me with rifles, after I’ve ruined their “fun”
Last summer I stopped going in person and now I send ‘Wheezy’ -- a DJI Phantom 3 drone. The screaming of carbon fiber rotors at 2,000rpm is enough to scare anything away -- it’s basically a flying lawnmower. What’s nice is it takes really really good video, too.
Out here getting the state cops or game wardens to do anything is a non-starter. Everyone is someone’s brother’s cousin or high school classmate. I have, literally, called the state troopers and been told “we are busy right now” and been hung up on. I only used to call them if I asked hunters to leave and swung by later and found them still there. Now I just buzz the area with a screaming drone darting along the tree-line. It’s actually kind of fun. I keep thinking of posting some of my hunter-cam videos.
Marcus @7:
It is a wonder that your drone has not been targeted by the hunters when you do a fly-by. Do you know if a hunter could be charged with any kind of criminal offense for shooting down your drone?
Shooting a protected animal and leaving it there to rot (or taking some stupid trophy) is so evil and wasteful.
There is Finnish a novelty/comedy song to the tune of “Orient Express” from 1970, in which a drunk moose-hunting party (putatively city-dwellers) shoots and catches a farmer’s tractor (after almost shooting a bus), thinking it’s a big moose (wearing rubber boots) and the the farmer is its calf (who they don’t manage to hit properly because he’s running quicker than the ploughing tractor). I never realized that the song could be so close to truth somewhere.