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Pahoehoe
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Pahoehoe
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 8:11 am 
Sky Hiker wrote:
But still a risk and how would you like to be one of those statistics?
They should ban driving to the trailheads and make a mandatory public transportation system... it will save lives. More lives than will be lost due to putting bears back where humans removed them from. Humans are terrible at analyzing risk.

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Kim Brown
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 9:00 am 
wrote:
Humans are terrible at analyzing risk
Yes; and that includes, perhaps, the lack of fear. Goading, cajoling, crowing, toss out what aboutisms is not an affective way to alleviate someone’s fear. I am on the fence about the issue; I like to hike solo, but am afraid of grizzlies and cougars, so in areas there have been sightings, I am afraid. The rational side of me knows cougars are everywhere, but the fear in me says they’re more abundant in North Central and eastern Washington, so I don’t hike solo in those areas; not that a 2nd person would save me, but it makes me feel better. Sometimes fears are irrational, and the person knows that it is irrational. Sometimes the fear is rational as far as that person in concerned. Sometimes it is rational and sometimes it is irrational. Regardless, if someone says they fear something, an attempt at making them feel stupid is not affective. This is a fairly serious project, and everyone’s opinion is important.

"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area." Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
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Pahoehoe
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 9:30 am 
Kim Brown wrote:
Sometimes fears are irrational
Irrational fear has no place in policy making. I won't attempt to list all the places where irrational fear has caused damage lasting many generations...
Kim Brown wrote:
This is a fairly serious project, and everyone’s opinion is important
I support everyone's right to say their piece, but opinions rooted in irrational fear should not be considered in decision making except for perhaps noting a need for education to help reduce fear. People are notoriously difficult to educate and "feel stupid" when faced with evidence disproving their beliefs, though
Kim Brown wrote:
wrote:
Humans are terrible at analyzing risk
Yes; and that includes, perhaps, the lack of fear.
I do not have a lack of fear of grizzly bears, if that is what you are suggesting. I actually fear black bears and cougars as well. I just think it's extremely important that we keep as much land as is reasonably possible as unimpacted as reasonably possible including restoration of native species. I am able to look at the facts and say that the risk is low and if I happen to end up being that statistic it's just my time. Same if I die in a car accident, am murdered, crash my mountain bike into a tree, drown while wading in a river, get heart disease from too many cheese burgers... all more likely than dying in a grizzly bear attack. 1 in 77 humans are killed in a car accident. What was the number for yellowstone backpackers? 1 in 200,000 or something? If you are willing to get in a car but you are opposed to grizzlies in their native habitat you are being irrational. I'm sorry if that makes you feel stupid.

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Kim Brown
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 10:02 am 
Pahoehoe wrote:
I'm sorry if that makes you feel stupid.
I specifically called your attempt an attempt, but thanks for apologizing anyway. This type of debate style turns people off. It's the same tactic North Cascades Conservation Council used against the repair of the Suiattle Road, and for their proposal to expand NCNP. It doesn't work. I know, because I've done it myself, and after years of being on each side of an argument time and again, have learned from it. I wish I knew then, how best to debate and make good efforts to persuade. It's working with the "psychology of the individual" *. * PG Wodehouse.

"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area." Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
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Michael Lewis
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 10:26 am 
Finally found the comment link through the Okanogan meeting link: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/documentsOpenForReview.cfm?parkID=327&projectID=44144 I'd like to see more discussion on the different costs associated with the 4 options as opposed to how many people were killed by griz kind of stuff (you can always skew data, LNT and carry bear spray). Maybe if we understood the costs it would be easier to motivate people. One of the arguments made at Okanogan was fear of cattle loss. Has this been documented in grizzly habitat that included rural pastures and is there a common defense that minimizes losses? What are the actual costs? Given this will be publicly funded, I'm most curious as to the breakdown of each possibility and what will have the smallest financial footprint. We already meddle in nature's affairs and to spend money on further meddling feels like weak reparations. If doing so challenges public trust, rational or not, it should have less impact.

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Pahoehoe
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 11:05 am 
Michael Lewis wrote:
One of the arguments made at Okanogan was fear of cattle loss. Has this been documented in grizzly habitat that included rural pastures
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/HSUS-Grizzly-Livestock_6.Mar_.19Final.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiU25X9qZzlAhUWv54KHeo_B-MQFjAJegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw0Tfx9cuWTfTWm6A1xRNjPu&cshid=1571076100503
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Government data confirm that grizzly bears have a negligible effect on U.S. cattle and sheep industries In the United States, data show that grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) kill few cattle and sheep. Livestock predation data collected by various governmental bodies differ significantly, however. The most recent data published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA)1 indicate losses many times greater than those collected by states and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). For instance, the USDA claims grizzly bears killed 3,162 cattle in nine states (in 2015), while the FWS verified only 123 such losses in three states (in 2013). Montana’s Board of Livestock’s data show that between 2015 and 2018 cattle losses from grizzly bears numbered 61 or less annually. The USDA’s methodology involves collecting data from a few mostly unverified sources, which the USDA then extrapolated statewide without calculating standard errors or using models to test relationships among various mortality factors.2 This contravenes the scientific method and results in exaggerated livestock losses attributed to native carnivores and dogs. Unfortunately, this misinformation informs public policies that harm native carnivores, including countless legislative attacks on grizzly bears, wolves and the Endangered Species Act. The Humane Society of the United States analyzed the USDA’s embellished predation numbers. Their data show that farmers and ranchers lose nine times more cattle and sheep to health, weather, birthing and theft problems than to all predators combined. In the USDA reports, “predators” include mammalian carnivores (e.g., cougars, wolves and bears), avian carnivores (e.g., eagles and hawks) and domestic dogs. Domestic dogs, according to the USDA’s data, kill 85 percent more cattle than grizzly bears. Also according to the USDA, in the states where grizzly bears live (excluding Alaska), they cause far fewer than one percent of unwanted cattle-calf (hereinafter “cattle”) losses by inventory. The USDA’s sheep losses report fails to differentiate between black bears and grizzly bears, making an analysis for grizzly bears impossible. Black bears live in approximately 41 states,3 while in the lower 48 states grizzly bears live in only three: Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Black bears’ and grizzly bears’ ranges overlap in those same three states. Grizzly bears also occur in Alaska, but the USDA does not analyze Alaska in their livestock reports. We present our analysis of the USDA’s data sets on cattle deaths in the three, grizzly bear-occupied states (excluding Alaska) and grizzly bears’ effects on the national cattle industries. We compare the USDA’s cattle data to those of other governmental bodies that also collect this information, which corroborates our findings that while the USDA’s predation figures are significantly exaggerated, they are nominal when compared to livestock mortalities from health, weather, theft and birthing problems (we refer to these livestock losses as “maladies”). We describe humane, efficacious and cost-effective non-lethal methods for livestock protection, and show that only a fraction of cattle and sheep growers in grizzly bear- occupied states use non-lethal methods to protect their herds—even as numerous published studies have found that non-lethal methods to protect non-native cattle and sheep from native carnivores are more efficacious and cost effective than the constant slaughter of wildlife that is ubiquitously employed—even on federally protected species.

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Pahoehoe
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 12:40 pm 
Kim Brown wrote:
Pahoehoe wrote:
I'm sorry if that makes you feel stupid.
I specifically called your attempt an attempt, but thanks for apologizing anyway. This type of debate style turns people off. It's the same tactic North Cascades Conservation Council used against the repair of the Suiattle Road, and for their proposal to expand NCNP. It doesn't work. I know, because I've done it myself, and after years of being on each side of an argument time and again, have learned from it. I wish I knew then, how best to debate and make good efforts to persuade. It's working with the "psychology of the individual" *. * PG Wodehouse.
I actually wasnt attempting to make anyone feel stupid. I'm just putting up facts that make irrational fear mongering look stupid...

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zephyr
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 2:39 pm 
Pahoehoe wrote:
I actually wasnt attempting to make anyone feel stupid. I'm just putting up facts that make irrational fear mongering look stupid...
Fear of grizzly bears is a healthy human response--developed over millennia of sharing the landscape together. Saying that this natural fear is "stupid" is just to intimidate people sharing their fear or concern. We get it that you want the bears back as demonstrated by your multiples posts on this thread. But it also seems that you want others to shut up about it. Re: "irrational"--quoting Wikipedia: The term is used, usually pejoratively, to describe thinking and actions that are, or appear to be, less useful, or more illogical than other more rational alternatives.[1][2] Those of us who have concerns about encounters with grizzly bears have every right to voice them. Your heavy-handed put down is not appreciated. It just discourages others from speaking out. ~z

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Pahoehoe
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 3:21 pm 
It becomes irrational when you are ignoring reason... ie, the risk is less than driving to the trailhead.

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Pahoehoe
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 4:14 pm 
iron wrote:
Pahoehoe wrote:
It becomes irrational when you are ignoring reason... ie, the risk is less than driving to the trailhead.
let us know how that works out for ya when mr grizz is sniffing at your tent door one night because you made a "human mistake" and forgot to sanitize every single smell out of there. Pahoehoe SO: dear, there's a big ass grizz out the door. Pahoehoe: stop being irrational. think about the drive home and the risks we have there!
You mean to ask if I would fear that I would be on my way to becoming like one of the 1 in 1.7 million overnight backcountry visitors in Yellowstone National Park? Absolutely, although the chances of that happening in NCNP any time soon is pretty dang low, even if some bears are brought in. Yellowstone has about 700 grizzlies. I would be pretty unlucky if that were me. See, I treat all "fear" in a similar way. I look at the reality of that fear. How likely is it? What can I do to mitigate the risk? Can I, or should I avoid it all together? Cows kill more humans than grizzlies. Tell that to the ranchers! And, again, 1 in 77 of us will be killed in a car accident!

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neek
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 4:38 pm 
Despite the negligible chances of being shredded by a griz, it seems like a decent way to go, compared to rotting in a nursing home or bleeding out in a car crash. Plus it would make a good story for the grandkids. I'm not an ecologist and can't comment on whether reintroduction makes sense in the cascades. I will note however that humans spent the past hundred thousand years wiping out most of the world's megafauna and apex predators. We finally have the tools and knowledge to start safely reversing this trend. I'd be delighted to see grizzly habitat expand, and eventually mammoths up in the tundra. I think this can even done while maintaining the delusion that humans are the pinnacle of evolution and deserve special treatment.

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Cyclopath
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 8:31 pm 
iron wrote:
ok. i will engage. glaciers + crevasses occur ONLY for people that actively seek them, likely en route to a summit. grizzles, if introduced, would occur possibly everywhere, impacting everyone (bear cans, regulations, bear spray, yadda yadda) comprende?
"Possibly" Nobody is being forced deep into the North Cascades wilderness whether these hypothetical monsters are going to be. And nobody actively seeks crevasse falls out. NPS already requires bear canisters in places where they make sense. Because black bears are already there, like food, and have claws and teeth. People who visit the mountains already know it's not without hazards, there are plenty of sanitized nature-like experiences available, and we choose the real thing instead.

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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 9:27 pm 
Oh how I miss those jumping in puddles days. So much more authentic than now.

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BigBrunyon
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PostMon Oct 14, 2019 9:35 pm 
iron wrote:
bear cans are only required in areas that have been overrun with people at common camp spots and have mice/small mammal issues. the recent additions to bear can requirements in the n. cascades is a result of the mythical grizzly from 2010. this is why they're required in hidden lake/big devil area because of the magic photo that proved.... nothing. it's okay, you and pahoehoe are new here. when you get some context on the background, then your arguments will make sense.
I had a black bear sniffing all around the tent at a campsite up at mcalester lake one night this summer. Knew it wasn't grizz but, glad I had my food in a bear canister! Pretty sure they are known to be way up in the north cascs and are eyeing sites from the woods at twilight to see where the people put the food before emerging after dark.

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Michael Lewis
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PostTue Oct 15, 2019 2:55 am 
The average profit of a heifer in 2015 was $2400 (~$9000 - cost of food, shelter etc.) Looking at the 2015 USDA data (since FWS has nothing verified beyond 2013 in the linked article) we can extrapolate. There were 1813 reported losses from grizzly bears. If we multiply by cost per state we get: 308 in Idaho $739,200 952 in Montana $2,284,800 553 in Wyoming $1,327,200 Losses within known grizzly habitat cost is over $4 million If we are to believe the total national losses (excluding Alaska) 3162 losses or $7,588,800 Looking at Fig. 14 on the Humane Society Grizzly Livestock doc, data from Montana Board of Livestock shows that in Montana alone there were greater than 30 confirmed grizzly related losses per year and double if probable attacks are considered. This would place losses at $100k-200k per year using only this one group of data. These were likely only incurred by select individuals within each animal's range. Even spread over hundreds of ranches this would extol tens of thousands of dollars on each ranch. Put yourself in their boots for a moment... would you take a hit that big every year for bears? What about double or triple if you were the unlucky guy that lived near bear habitat? (yeah, personally I'd move my animals out to safer pasture but core american values can't be helped for some...) Now there were reports in other states of grizzly related losses outside the known range (Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin) which places the reliability of the USDA data deeply in question. But ranchers and farmers are not going to investigate it further to differentiate from wolves, coyotes or black bears. All threats are dealt with. As a rancher or farmer, financially it makes no sense to be lenient and this is the real tragic part. What could be done to create real financial incentive for those who stand to take the biggest risk from bringing the bears back? This is my chief concern and why I wanted to go over the options laid out by NPS With a little over a week to go, I hope we stop ranting about the terrible Griz and start considering real impacts on both the bears and landowners.

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