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olePigeon · May 12, 2006, 03:45 PM

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/

I figured we're having so much fun with the hammerhead thread, hell, why not.

Dark Helmet · May 12, 2006, 03:49 PM

****ing assholes.

Seriously, what is wrong with these people. I can only think it is compensation thing (not in a financial manner).

Spliff · May 12, 2006, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/

I figured we're having so much fun with the hammerhead thread, hell, why not.

T'is a shame because that bear was so much more valuable alive. If the bear had been "discovered" before it had been shot, biologists might have learned alot about how well this hybrid did in the wild. In behaviour, was it more like a grizzly or a polar bear?

A bloody waste of potential research.

Rumor · May 12, 2006, 03:54 PM

A real hunter hunts for two things: 1) the thrill of the hunt 2) dinner.

Then there are those that shoots everything that moves. I can't stand this type.

Dark Helmet · May 12, 2006, 04:01 PM

Originally Posted by Rumor

A real hunter hunts for two things: 1) the thrill of the hunt

Is that still justification?

andreas_g4 · May 12, 2006, 04:06 PM

How can one feel proud (look at his posing) when he killed such an impressive creature.

faragbre967 · May 12, 2006, 04:08 PM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Is that still justification?

I think it is if the animal being hunted is over populated or at least at a level of acceptable loss. Something like this is terrible, that type of bear may very well be extinct now because the hunter didn't know what type of bear it was and decided to kill it. Who knows, this could have even been some form of evolution that was cut down before it had a chance to take root.

G Barnett · May 12, 2006, 04:08 PM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Is that still justification?

If you play fair and give the hunted animal an even chance of mounting you on the wall, then, sure!

FireWire · May 12, 2006, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Is that still justification?

Relax. He didn't do it on purpose, he thought he was shooting at a "regular" bear, for which he received a license by the government, which means that the population could manage a few losses. Same thing for these "poor" seals...

What shocked me the most in this news was that they considered filing charges against him if the bear in question turned out to be an albino Grizzly, for which he didn't own a license.. Come on, it would have been an honest mistake...

Dark Helmet · May 12, 2006, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by G Barnett

If you play fair and give the hunted animal an even chance of mounting you on the wall, then, sure!

Like what? Give the bear camouflage and a shotgun also?

sek929 · May 12, 2006, 04:42 PM

That's why I hunt the deadliest game of all...... man.

G Barnett · May 12, 2006, 04:47 PM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Like what? Give the bear camouflage and a shotgun also?

Nah. Spear, and maybe a shield on your part. Mano-a-mano. May the top predator win!

Rumor · May 12, 2006, 05:05 PM

I'm not trying to justify his actions. It's too bad that particular bear wasn't captured alive or even studied in it's own habitat. My point is that there are two types of hunters.

greenamp · May 12, 2006, 05:30 PM

Hunting for sport alone is just sh*tty, regardless of the whys and hows.

Rumor · May 12, 2006, 05:36 PM

Originally Posted by greenamp

Hunting for sport alone is just sh*tty, regardless of the whys and hows.

You don't understand what I'm saying, do you?

A REAL hunter hunts for the thrill AND food.

FireWire · May 12, 2006, 06:56 PM

Well, I don't know much things about hunting, but I guess even those who hunts for "sports" eat what they captured, or at least sell or give the meat to somebody? They don't just keep the skin as a trophy??

Personally, I'm not really "pro-hunt", but if I was against it, I'd also have to be against the killing of pigs, cows, chicken, etc that we consume almost everyday. As far as I'm concerned, if we don't mess with the ecosystem and respect the quotas, I don't see a problem with that.

Granted, it would have been a good thing if this hybrid bear was captured alive, for science's sake. But it's not like it was the only one on earth, they succeeded to produce a few in captivity.

The Godfather · May 12, 2006, 06:59 PM

Hunting licenses should have a 3 credit class and examination requirement. And this retarded hunter should have his license revoked for life.

faragbre967 · May 12, 2006, 07:12 PM

Originally Posted by The Godfather

Hunting licenses should have a 3 credit class and examination requirement. And this retarded hunter should have his license revoked for life.

A lot of states do require a hunter safety class. In Michigan I don't think you do, but you at least need to buy a license for each animal per season.

Dr Reducto · May 12, 2006, 07:22 PM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Like what? Give the bear camouflage and a shotgun also?

The bear already has lots of advantages over a human. It can outrun, outclimb, and sense us much better than we can sense them. And in a confrontation, a grizzly bear can take your head off with a single swipe of the paw.

Personally, I think the human has the major disadvantage compared to the bear.

SeSawaya · May 12, 2006, 07:55 PM

Originally Posted by faragbre967

A lot of states do require a hunter safety class. In Michigan I don't think you do, but you at least need to buy a license for each animal per season.

Michigan usually has the highest number of hunter shootings on opening day in the country. Why change a good thing?

Athens · May 12, 2006, 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by The Godfather

Hunting licenses should have a 3 credit class and examination requirement. And this retarded hunter should have his license revoked for life.

Why? and the gun laws here already require a lot.

n8236 · May 12, 2006, 08:11 PM

fcuk hunters, that's freakin bs.

I'd put a bullet in that guy's ass.

Rumor · May 12, 2006, 09:25 PM

Those that hunt for sport usually don't use the meat.

greenamp · May 12, 2006, 10:02 PM

Originally Posted by Rumor

You don't understand what I'm saying, do you?

A REAL hunter hunts for the thrill AND food.

I got what you were saying. I wasn't responding to you bro.

olePigeon · May 12, 2006, 11:01 PM

Originally Posted by faragbre967

A lot of states do require a hunter safety class.

Oh, that explains Chaney. D.C. isn't a state.

FireWire · May 13, 2006, 03:21 AM

Originally Posted by The Godfather

And this retarded hunter should have his license revoked for life.

Did I miss something? What's that for? He did had a license for polar bear, shoots what looks like a polar bear but hits the only hybrid existing. What could he have done? Ask the bear for some I.D? Collect some DNA and wait for the lab result to come back?

Doofy · May 13, 2006, 04:10 AM

This thread is so wrong I don't even know where to begin.

Kevin · May 13, 2006, 04:52 AM

I agree

It has also gotten very smuggy in here.

Railroader · May 13, 2006, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by SeSawaya

Michigan usually has the highest number of hunter shootings on opening day in the country. Why change a good thing?

Could you give me a site with some facts to back that up?

I wonder if what you are recalling from memory is simply number of hunters or number of hunters compared to the number of non-hunters. A LOT of people hunt in Michigan. From my experience, more people are hunters than non-hunters in Michigan.

Railroader · May 13, 2006, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by Doofy

This thread is so wrong I don't even know where to begin.

Pick the stupidest post and start there. I went regional.

Spliff · 03:59 PM

Originally Posted by FireWire

Did I miss something? What's that for? He did had a license for polar bear, shoots what looks like a polar bear but hits the only hybrid existing. What could he have done?

Left the rifle at home and brought a camera with a sweet telephoto lens. Snapped some pics of the bears, had enlargements made, hung them on a wall in his house, and had people comment on what a great photo it was and what an unusual bear it was. And guess what, he still gets to enjoy the thrill of the hunt by stalking the bear and getting close enough to it to get a great photo.

The bear gets to live and contribute to science and the study of animal behaviour.

Additionally, with that camera, he could take a picture of his cock and enlarge it in Photoshop. Then he can show what a huge penis he has without having to kill a bear to prove it.

Finally, taking a great photo requires far more skill, training, and talent than hunting grizzlies or polar bears.

Cody Dawg · May 13, 2006, 02:14 PM

Hunting is so ice age and uncivilized.

Like DICK Cheney - he's a hunter.

Visnaut · May 13, 2006, 03:58 PM

Great post, spliff.

Also, the concept of spending $45,000 to go on a hunting expedition boggles my mind. You gotta have it pretty good when you can spend that much dough on a frivolous endeavor like that. It's his to spend, of course, but I could come up with a lot better things to do. To each his own, I guess.

FireWire · May 13, 2006, 04:37 PM

OK, so you're just anti-hunting in general, not just angry at THIS hunter in particular. So if I understand you well, you're also all vegetarian? What's the difference between killing a wild animal and a farm-rised pig? As long as you don't ruin the ecosystem and respect the quota.. Personally, I wouldn't be able to kill an animal, but I'm not angry at hunters, if they are civilized and respect the nature.

Spliff · May 13, 2006, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by FireWire

OK, so you're just anti-hunting in general, not just angry at THIS hunter in particular. So if I understand you well, you're also all vegetarian? What's the difference between killing a wild animal and a farm-rised pig? As long as you don't ruin the ecosystem and respect the quota.. Personally, I wouldn't be able to kill an animal, but I'm not angry at hunters, if they are civilized and respect the nature.

I'm anti trophy-hunting. I'm not overly opposed to subsistence hunting since killing a wild animal is less cruel than a factory-farmed animal. From an 'ethical' standpoint, you can argue that solely living off animals that you've hunted is less cruel that eating factory-farmed meat from the grocery store. That being said, I'd rather that there were no animals killed. And yes, I'm a vegetarian.

Trophy hunting is unnecessary. It serves no purpose other than to inflate some guy's ego.

freudling · May 13, 2006, 05:52 PM

Xunts.

Kevin · May 13, 2006, 06:24 PM

HAH! I trophy pick.

I go in my parents garden on the weekends and TORTURE the lettuce before I RIP it to shreds and stick it in my mouth.

And the carrots? They didn't have a chance.

I ripped em up and ended their life.

Didn't even eat all of em.

They deserved it.

ShortcutToMoncton · May 13, 2006, 06:47 PM

I don't get it. Lettuce?

greg

FireWire · May 13, 2006, 07:13 PM

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that the wording used in the blog linked in the first post is quite deceptive and clearly partial:

Jim Martell spent $45,000 dollars for the chance of travelling to Canada's far north to put a bullet through a polar bear's head. And the lucky old devil bagged a beauty – the first and only grizzly/polar bear crossbreed ever discovered in the wild - later confirmed by DNA analysis.

I wonder if this "sportsman" (pictured far left) paused to consider – as he peered excitedly down his gun barrel – why his victim bore the creamy white fur of a polar bear, fused with the humped back, shallow face, and brown patches of a grizzly?

If he did pause, I suspect his next thought would have been "oh, who cares, wait till I tell the boys back home!" before adding a big warm splash of crimson to the creature's unique pelt.

Contrast this with the (more) impartial news article, wrote by real journalists (who only state the facts, rather than inventing emotions and intentions to make it sound more dramatical) :

Roger Kuptana, an Inuit tracker from the Northwest Territories, suspected the American hunter he was guiding had shot a hybrid bear after noticing its white fur was spotted brown and it had the long claws and slightly humped back of a grizzly.
[...]
He said the first person to realize something was different about the bear shot and killed last month on the southern end of Banks Island in the Beaufort Sea was Kuptana, the guide.

So it seems to me the hunter was innocent, he didn't mean to shoot this hybrid, but genuinely thought he was shooting at a normal polar bear. The guide had doubts after he had shot it. So all this anger against him is clearly out of place...

Kevin · May 13, 2006, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by FireWire

So it seems to me the hunter was innocent, he didn't mean to shoot this hybrid, but genuinely thought he was shooting at a normal polar bear. The guide had doubts after he had shot it. So all this anger against him is clearly out of place...

Hence the knee-jerking.

Spliff · May 13, 2006, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by FireWire

So it seems to me the hunter was innocent, he didn't mean to shoot this hybrid, but genuinely thought he was shooting at a normal polar bear. The guide had doubts after he had shot it. So all this anger against him is clearly out of place...

I thought that was never in doubt. He was hunting polar bears. The bear he saw looked like a polar bear. So he shot it. I don't think he said to his guide, "I wanna shoot me some rare polar bear/grizzly bear hybrid mutha****a."

He's still a trophy hunter. Hence, an under-endowed jackass.

But he might as well kill as many polar bears as he wants since they're all going to be extinct in 30 years because of global warming/climate change.

FireWire · May 13, 2006, 11:38 PM

Originally Posted by Spliff

I thought that was never in doubt. He was hunting polar bears. The bear he saw looked like a polar bear. So he shot it. I don't think he said to his guide, "I wanna shoot me some rare polar bear/grizzly bear hybrid mutha****a."

Well, from the text of the blog the OP linked to, it sounded as if he knew that fact before shooting, or at least realized that something was wrong, but went ahead anyway.

Originally Posted by Spliff

He's still a trophy hunter. Hence, an under-endowed jackass.

Where does it say that? Who tells he wasn't going to redistribute the meat before putting the "trophy" in front of his fireplace (if that's what he was gonna do)? I mean, we don't know this guy or his intentions, we should back off with the insults a little bit. (Not necessarily targetted at you).

Originally Posted by Spliff

But he might as well kill as many polar bears as he wants since they're all going to be extinct in 30 years because of global warming/climate change.

Well, that's another story. You should blame my government for issuing a license in the first place. Don't shoot the "messenger". In my opinion, the Inuit guide is more to blame in this story: he lives here, he grew up there, and he's supposed to respect the nature more than that, but he used his skills to sacrifice an innocent beast to a tourist. He's a shame for his people. The client only used a "service" available.

tavilach · May 13, 2006, 11:41 PM

Haha. I just posted this on Slashdot, and no one seems to like the article. It isn't even on the main page.

AKcrab · May 15, 2006, 03:36 AM

Nobody seemed to notice one small fact.
We've seen these before.

Stirling said that polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos and their offspring are fertile, but there had been no documented case in the wild. -- Ian Stirling, a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton, Alberta.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...d/14558632.htm

Hate hunting or love it, it's not quite the "zomg they killed one in a bazzilion" travesty the media has portrayed.

FireWire · 05:01 AM

Originally Posted by AKcrab

Nobody seemed to notice one small fact.
We've seen these before.

Oh, I was under the assumption that other people knew that fact as well. D'oh!

[Edit] As a matter of fact, I stated it earlier in this thread

Originally Posted by FireWire

Granted, it would have been a good thing if this hybrid bear was captured alive, for science's sake. But it's not like it was the only one on earth, they succeeded to produce a few in captivity.

When you think about it, it's not really surprising, as polar bears evolved from Grizzlies over 200 000 years ago (some even say a few millions years). In fact, this cross-breeding could be considered a kind of "reverse-evolution"...

kmkkid · May 15, 2006, 04:53 AM

It looks like a strung out polar bear.

sabrejim · May 15, 2006, 09:20 AM

I thought this happened in 2004 when a group of people got lost on some island in the south pacific.

Person Man · May 15, 2006, 11:40 AM

Originally Posted by AKcrab

Nobody seemed to notice one small fact.
We've seen these before.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...d/14558632.htm

Hate hunting or love it, it's not quite the "zomg they killed one in a bazzilion" travesty the media has portrayed.

Yes.

But this is first one they've found IN THE WILD, not at a zoo.

Jawbone54 · May 15, 2006, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by kaze0

I thought this happened in 2004 when a group of people got lost on some island in the south pacific.

qnxde · May 15, 2006, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by tavilach

Haha. I just posted this on Slashdot, and no one seems to like the article. It isn't even on the main page.

I think it's more of a digg article.