Although this was reported in 2007, it is still going on under Palin's watch in Alaska and it is, no doubt, happening with our beautiful bears in BC and elsewhere. How anyone can do this to an animal and feel good about themselves completely astounds me.

What Happened to The Hunter's Commitment to Fair Chase?
By Chris Day - Guide and Naturalist, Emerald Air Service

On September 30th, we dropped off two news crews to film the brown bear hunt in the Katmai Preserve.
Overflying the area before landing we observed nine hunting camps. Every camp without exception had bears within 200 yards of their tents – bears were strolling up and down the shores of the lake dredging fish, eating berries, completely unaware of their fates.

More than likely, these bears thought -- if bears think -- that these camps and men were no different than the thousands of sports fishermen and bear viewers they have been co-existing with along the salmon stream all summer long.

While we unloaded the crews' gear from the plane, a beautiful big female with a fat cub walked curiously up to within 50 feet of the plane. Curious, but unconcerned. Three more young females without cubs were dredging fish within a few hundred yards before we taxied out. Sports fishermen were casting flies into the waters of the creek. The scene was one of nature's splendor at its height, the tundra alive with fall color, fat bears taking their last meals before climbing into winter dens.

At four o’clock the next afternoon, October 1 -- the first day of hunting season in the preserve, less than 24 hours after we had dropped the crew off -- the scene had changed.

Overflying the area prior to landing, the shores were strewn with bear carcasses, the dead bruins lying on their backs with legs sprawled out as they had been left after their hides had been stripped and carcasses decapitated.

As we taxied up to shore a young, blond female, a bear that had been there the evening before, walked out of the bushes on the hillside a few hundred feet above the plane. As she casually looked at us, out of the alders between us and the bear two hunters stepped out. The bear did not run, she looked at the hunters and was shot. This was not a big male. It was a young, most probably 4- or 5-year-old, female. This bear was no more than 50 feet from the hunters and only a few hundred feet from their camp.

Bears wandering within 300 yards from the kill didn’t even interrupt their feeding. I seriously question the fairness of the chase involved in killing these bears. The hunt will go on for three more weeks, the carcasses will become bait, and these hunters will be able to shoot bears the following morning without leaving their sleeping bags if they so choose. The hunters did nothing illegal.

In the time since witnessing this kill my emotions have moved from initial disbelief --shock and anger at the moment of the kill, then a deep sorrow and grief into the night after the hunt -- to waking with a burning, white-hot rage in the pit of my stomach that has now tempered and hardened my resolve and determination to end this slaughter.

Hunting pressure has been increasing in this area for a number of years now; we have seen a marked decrease in the number of bears we watch in this area and a change in the makeup of the population.

Biology aside (there are many bears in this area), economics aside (value of hunting versus non-consumptive use of wildlife), this is simply ethically and morally wrong. Hunters as a group adhere to the concept of FAIR CHASE

What we witnessed certainly was not FAIR CHASE.