Reprinted from an October 22, 2006 column in the Morgantown Dominion Post
Predators kill animals, and many do it every day. In fact, if they don’t kill something every day, many will die. I observed two encounters between predators and prey this past year while bowhunting. Both showed me just how cruel (from a human perspective) Mother Nature can be. But what I saw goes on every day in the wild. Most of us just don’t witness it, and wouldn’t like it if we did. Fact is that many folks don’t even want to hear about animals killing animals.
On a black bear/woods bison hunt in northern Alberta, I observed a moose/black bear encounter. I was bowhunting at Andrew Lake Lodge, and we spent the first night in a trailer along a small lake from where we’d depart by float plane the next morning. As I sat on the porch watching waterfowl and other birds, a huge black bear ambled down the far shore. I watched him for 15 minutes, and marveled at his size. This was a big bear.
Six days later I was back at the trailer to spend the night before our early morning departure for home. The guides were watching the Edmonton Oilers playing Stanley Cup hockey, and again I was out on the porch, just relaxing and taking in the sights and sounds. Around 9 PM (still daylight that far North) I watched a cow moose swimming across the lake with her calf. I called to the guides to come out and observe, and one spotted a second calf still on the shore. When the cow got the first calf across she swam back for the second one.
She got the calf and when she was half way across the lake we heard a mournful wail from the shore. That’s when we saw it. The big black bear I’d observed earlier in the week was back. He had the first calf by the neck, then stood on it as he killed it. The calf wailed loudly for at least two minutes. It was mournful. The mother swam to within 100 yards with her second calf, then slowly turned around, took her calf back to the far shore and disappeared in the bush. The bear went on to consume the first calf. Black bears are probably 70% vegetarians, but in the spring they do kill a fair number of moose calves.
On my return to Morgantown, I was telling the story to some non hunting friends. They commented on how sorry they felt for the black bear I harvested with my bow on that hunt. But after telling the above story, they asked if we shot the bear. "Why didn’t you shoot the bear to save the calf?" My immediate comment was, you can’t have it both ways. One minute you don’t want me to shoot a bear, and the next minute you do.
But there were several reasons not to shoot this bear. First, I didn’t have a tag. Second, the bear was 400 yards away from us. That is a long bow shot for sure (yuk). Third, the calf was dead the moment the bear grabbed it, even though it didn’t die for 2-3 minutes. The fact is, if hunters shot every bear that killed and ate another wild animal (as if that were possible), we’d probably be killing every black bear in North America. Predators kill and eat things so they can live.
Then this fall, on a mountain goat hunt, my guide and I were using a spotting scope, looking at three big billies on the mountain. Suddenly, my guide spotted a grizzly bear, a sow with two cubs. She was 300 yards from the goats when she caught their scent. She immediately left her cubs and charged up the mountain quickly closing the gap on the goats. Two of the goats left, but the third climbed on a rock and gored the bear as it charged. The sow left, returned to its cubs and ate berries. My guide said that he knew that grizzlies killed mountain goats, but he’d never actually witnessed an attempt. It was something to see.
But those two incidents brought home the point that all predators must kill animals to survive. Every red-tailed hawk, kestrel, mountain lion, red fox, screech owl, barred owl, etc., etc. kills and eats a wild animal every day, or most every day. Most people don’t see it, most don’t even know it happens, and most are upset when they do see or know it happens. But it is what it is. Humans are the same. We kill animals either directly or indirectly for our survival. Yes, even vegetarians are responsible for the death of animals. It is what it is. We humans make the deaths as "humane" as possible (at least most humans do), but without "predators" killing "prey" ... well, most predators, including humans, would perish.
