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Paul McCarney
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In March 2022, I sat down with Wendy Keefover of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to chat about a petition the HSUS submitted to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The petition requested that the California Fish and Game Commission suspend the black bear hunt in the state. I wanted to chat with Wendy about what the HSUS hoped to achieve in California related to black bear hunting… Read More
Bear hunting is complex for reasons that span the full spectrum of the personal and the political. These complexities entangle with each other until they become somewhat inseparable, with bear hunting coming to represent a potently symbolic place in the cultural imagination of the public and a tangible place in the diets and lives of many hunters. I think this sense of complexity is one of the reasons I love bear hunting;… Read More
This post is essentially an unedited transcript of my discussion from Episode 13 – Enhancing the Social License to Hunt of the Hunt To Eat Show covering recent initiatives to suspend black bear hunting in California. California has had a busy year with bear hunting. In February 2021, State Senator Scott Wiener proposed Senate Bill 252 (SB-252), which was sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), to end black… Read More
Conservation involves complicated layers that must be navigated. It involves a diverse set of voices, nuanced motivations, and vastly different ideas about the best types of programs and policies. Inevitably, there is a great deal of push and pull and disagreement about the right kinds of decision-making in conservation and what constitutes a morally right way to approach conservation. Bounties and killing contests occupy a contradictory space in the North American conservation… Read More
On October 30, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH) announced that the province of Ontario would be expanding the spring bear hunt pilot project for another 5 years. Like most issues related to hunting, the factors and considerations involved in decisions about the Ontario spring bear hunt are numerous and complex. The history of debate over the spring bear hunt is in many ways the perfect example of the challenge in balancing science… Read More
This post originally started as a general discussion of the basics of black bear ecology, which was inspired by my upcoming bear hunt, and was intended to be a simple recap from the hunt. I worked on this post before the hunt, while sitting in my stand a couple times, and finally, completing it once I returned from the hunt. The nature and purpose of the post took a different turn on… Read More
Paul McCarney