A week or so ago, a local farmer and rancher called me and told me about an incident with a predator. This incident was not about a cougar, but involved an adult bear that had probably killed the rancher’s livestock.

The man told me he was out in his field checking on his cows and fences when he found the carcass of a cow.  He approached the carcass and saw that it had been partially eaten.  He guessed it had been there for a couple of days.  He could not tell what had killed it, but as he was checking it out, a large female bear came out of the woods nearby.  She walked toward him growling and grinding her teeth.  He retreated a bit and she kept on coming.  He then hollered a little and waved his arms around and she walked off.

After a few minutes he went back to the carcass to see if he could take it away and bury it or otherwise dispose of the rotting flesh.  The old sow came out of the woods and came toward him again, grinding her teeth and growling.  This time she kept coming even when he yelled. He felt threatened, so he fired a shot into the air and the sow retreated again to the woods. The bear would not let him get on with the business of taking care of the carcass of the animal.  He did not shoot the bear.

His first question to me was, if he had shot the bear, would it have been a crime, and the second question was, would he be prosecuted?  It was his land, it was his cow. The carcass needed to be cleaned up, and he felt threatened and prevented from doing this work by the bear.

I was not sure of the answer to the rancher’s first question. So, when I was talking with Mike Wharton of WDFW last week about a cougar situation, I took the opportunity to ask him the rancher’s first question. His response was that protection of human life is the paramount concern. If people are threatened by a predator and it is reasonable that they feel threatened, then they should protect themselves.

The law is there to protect us, but we must remember, laws by themselves do nothing.  The only thing that can keep us safe is our respect for the law, together with common sense enforcement.  The WDFW has the obligation to enforce state wildlife laws, some of which are not very popular and most of which were enacted without much concern for the wildlife issues which face us here. But if we respect the law and the law is enforced with common sense, then the public good is served. To have a law that actually serves the public good is the best we can hope for.