By Jim Posewitz

This year bear hunting appeared on the ballot in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Michigan. To the North, petitions circulated in British Columbia and Ontario. The future of hunting, and the relationship between hunters and the rest of the society, is being forged in the presence of the bear, this "… beast that walks like a man."

The events that endowed us with the privilege of hunting gave all citizens an interest in wildlife. What we do and how we do it, is a legitimate social issue. Remaining socially acceptable as hunters and particularly as bear hunters, is essential if we are to sustain this North American hunting heritage.

Humans have been hunting bear in North America since bear and hunters crossed the Bering Bridge between Alaska and Siberia 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. When the Europeans returned in the 16th Century they too hunted bear. Through it all, the bear survived, perhaps prospered. Our systems of managing and conserving he bear: our collective ‘hunter’s ethic’, cared for bear populations.

Appreciating The Bear

What remains is strengthening our personal ethic with the bears we hunt to assure that our conduct toward them is respectful, appreciative and honorable. Social acceptance lies in this component. To do this we can visit some values the descendants of the Pleistocene immigrants developed as they associated with bears as hunters. What can emerge is a mixture of beliefs to form a new North American bear hunting ethic. It can be a blending of the strength of our bear management truths, with the power of myth that has attended the relationship between hunters and bears for as long as we have shared wild places. It can be an ethic that honors both the hunter and the hunted.

A. Irving Hallowell, in an article published in the American Anthropologist in 1926, Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere noted that the same complex of bear rituals were found among circumpolar people including: the Finns, people of the West coast of Canada and the Northwest Coast of the United States, and the Algonquin tribes of north America. What is most relevant was his observation that:

"The rituals were all guided by an intent of demonstrating respect towards the bear, under the assumption that his soul lives under the protective aegis of a forest deity."

The basic ritual included:

"…conciliatory addresses to the bear … a taboo against referring to the bear explicitly : a preference for consuming the bear and disposing of his remains (and) a special stress on the safeguarding of the bear’s skull."

There is clearly a difference between these ancient perspectives and some current bear hunting attitudes. In native cultures bear hunts take place in an atmosphere of gifts and responsibilities. They are responsibilities borne by the hunter toward the bear, its environment, and a "forest master." The forest master, a perceived spiritual protector believed to preside over the relationship. Among the subsistence hunters, bear hunting was never a heroic individual enterprise, but an occasion for courteous and delicate negotiations with the forest master and the bear. It was believed that if the bear was treated properly, both during and after the hunt, the hunter would be favored and the trespass upon the forest master’s domain excused. If the bear is mistreated, offended or wasted there could be dire consequences.

There are curious similarities to the transgressions warranting the feared consequences in aboriginal cultures and arguments of those now challenging bear hunting. The campaigns to ban bear hunting are often driven with charges of waste (killing only for the trophy), perceived violations of fair chase concepts (baiting and hounding) and suggestions that modern bar hunters are only killings to salve their egos.

Is there an answer, an idea, perhaps even a proposal, for how we respond to the clamor that challenges our hunting and immediately our hunting of bear? There certainly is! We must establish a relationship of mutual respect. This is what we must add to our modern hunting ethic to make that ethic complete and sustainable. This is not a suggestion that we form ritualistic cells acting out the mythical stories and legends, get to know them and learn to appreciate the beauty and power that can exist between a hunter and the animal they hunt. If we gain this appreciation, we will behave ethically toward the bear and society will notice.

We can fashion a bear hunting ethic that blends the strength of our conservation truths with the power of myth that has existed between hunters and bears for as long as we have shared North America. It can and must be an ethic that honors both the hunter and the hunted, ad if it is, we will be privileged to be the hunters of bears deep into the next millennium.1

1 Taken from: Bear Hunting Ethics, Mythology and the North American Hunter. A presentation prepared for the MONTANA BEAR HUNTING SEMINAR. Sponsored by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks September 10, 1996. Copies available on request