Bear spray Workman's views run contrary to research
Vic Workman seems to have a lot of opinions about grizzlies. Who doesn't? But his keep appearing in the news.Workman says (Missoulian, Nov. 27) he never expected to meet a grizzly where he was deer hunting. Yet wildlife managers and locals know grizzlies frequent that area, especially in autumn.
He says guns work better than bear spray to deter attacks. But studies showing the opposite are one reason Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks urges hunters to carry spray.
He says it's time to start hunting grizzlies, and this will make them more afraid of humans. Well, if you shoot one with cubs, her offspring might become more fearful - if they can survive without her. But shooting mother grizzlies isn't legal anywhere, and other grizzlies tend to be solitary. Killing a loner won't make it afraid, just dead. If you wound it, then yes, it might learn something. So are we supposed to open a Montana grizzly wounding season? Workman first has to explain how this will somehow make us safer if we surprise a bear on a carcass, as he did: mothers defending cubs and grizzlies running around with festering wounds.
Workman is not a researcher, natural history expert or animal behavior specialist. He is a real-estate salesman who was appointed - politically - to the commission that oversees FWP. Opinions are fine. God bless 'em. But it is never helpful to present viewpoints as though you were an authority on some subject when that is not the case. Especially if you are a game commissioner and your personal opinions run contrary to facts and the educational efforts of FWP.
Douglas H. Chadwick, Whitefish
Santa attack Hack attention-seekers dumb down culture
Let's hope that the Santa who was struck by a pie at Southgate Mall presses charges against his attacker, Clint Westwood. The man playing Santa was there to make people happy and had no desire to be the butt of Westwood's prank for the sake of his “movie,” “My Crazy Life.” The concept of other people's rights has eluded this student and he would be well served by learning it.It is now common for those who are clearly bereft of talent, intelligence or creativity, yet have an infantile need for attention, to gain it through rudeness at other people's expense.
The same day the Missoulian reported Westwood's mundane act, it also reported the death of Evel Knievel and highlighted Oscar Wilde's death in 1900. Knievel really did have a life crazy enough to make a movie about, and Wilde nailed Westwood on the head when he said, “It is absurd to divide people into good or bad. People are either charming or tedious.”
Westwood is probably not a bad person, and certainly not charming, just tedious. As a filmmaker, he is obviously no budding Orson Welles, but I would suggest he rename his movie “Citizen Vain.” Gee, a montage of absurd, vulgar and illegal antics. Nobody's ever thought of that before.
If our culture continues dumbing down at its present rate - and with help from “artists” like Westwood, it will - he might yet have a successful film career. The best we working citizens can hope for is that Westwood is paying his own way through college, preferably by doing drudge labor that benefits other people - but I doubt that's the case.
Rube Wrightsman, Plains
Christmas Remember true spirit of the holiday
Hey everybody, just a thought for all of us: Jesus is the reason for the season. God bless and merry Christmas!Cheryl Bramsen-Sage, Florence
Mount Jumbo Hold committee meetings in evening
It would be a community service to have the Mount Jumbo Advisory Committee always meet at a time when local residents and interested residents could participate in its rather segregated meetings.After observing a few meetings at 4 p.m. at the University of Montana while absenting myself from work at great cost, I found that the Mount Jumbo Advisory Committee is rather self-selected by its choice of meeting time and place.
Only those supported by taxes and tuition or retirement benefits are regularly represented. How can Missoula's public lands be controlled by only those who work in publicly funded positions, or who don't have to work at all?
Management of such a community treasure should not be left to those with public funding and flexible schedules when the majority can't express their educated, informed and professional opinions without missing work.
Missoula's tax-paying citizens deserve the opportunity to be present at every Mount Jumbo Advisory Committee meeting. It is imperative that these meetings be held at 7 p.m. or on weekends so that those who pay the taxes, rather than are paid by the taxes, in Missoula may be present and may have their considerable expertise represented.
M. Tennison, Missoula
Trapping Ban would be discrimination
I am writing in regards to the guest column in the Missoulian on Nov. 28 that states that trapping has no place on public lands. This one line was very offensive to me: “Why should all of us have to give of the pleasure of letting our dogs run for a mere 3,000 trappers?”In other words, the majority can discriminate against a minority because they don't like what they do and ban trappers from public lands. This kind of thinking has no place in my America.
As a National Rifle Association recruiter, I often kept this poster on my table: “First they came for the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.” This was written by a Pastor Martin Niemoeller, a victim of the Nazis.
Discrimination for any reason must not be tolerated, so be careful what you wish for because you may be in the minority someday.
Michael E. Dey, Missoula
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