Meanwhile, the bureaucrats working at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and who for some reason were offended by this citizen's acts of kindness and concern, have paid no price for their attempts to harm a kindhearted and proactive citizen. Hey bureaucrats, that's called a good deed, and should be rewarded, not prosecuted.
The rescuer in action
Corey Hancock said he was hiking Monday night in the Elkhorn area to snap photos of waterfalls on the North Fork of the Santiam River when he came across the 3-month-old baby bear, which he said appeared to be close to death.
"It was cold, raining, [the cub was] just sitting there in the rain not moving, not breathing," Hancock told KPTV.
Hancock said he waited a few minutes to see if the cub's mother would return, but he soon decided the 5-pound bear was too ill to leave behind.
"I didn't have a choice, I wouldn't have left it out there," he told Inside Edition. "He seemed to be abandoned and dying. He was hardly moving at first when I walked up on him. I thought was dead."
Hancock carried the cub more than two miles to his car.
"I was carrying this little lifeless creature in my arms kind of wondering if he was going to make it," he said. "I tried to give it CPR. I gave it a few rescue puffs and pushed on his chest. He took one breath. He was fighting to survive."
"I kind of held him and right as I was kind of thinking maybe I should go put him back in the woods, he took a breath," Hancock said.
He drove to an area where he could get cellphone reception and posted a photo of the bear on Facebook, asking for advice on where to take it.
Hancock ended up taking the cub to Turtle Animal Center in Salem.
That's all a cute little story, but I know this situation quite closely. It's all been trivialized and sugar coated to lay some sort of blame on the gubm'nt. The fact of the matter is, that there is a law about this, the guy tried to do right, and was NOT cited for his actions, and in this case there is a potentially good end to this story.
ReplyDeleteBeing the nasty mean biologist I've been for the last ~40 years, I would suggest, If this guy hadn't had done what he did, nature would have taken its course, as it does, and the story would be over. As it is, the state is obligated to deal with the situation. I don't know how they budget for situations like this.
So, the guy tried to help, but it was not legal, and he was exonerated for his supposed concern. The state now has to spend many thousands of dollars on a one bear cub.
The black bear population in Oregon is not threatened, nor endangered. The bunny huggers need to pull their heads out of their collective rabbit hole.
This is a different version of FAKE NEWS! This is what the media does. Welcome to the propaganda machine. Queue "Welcome to The Machine" Pink Floyd.
Nuff said, back to the Cutty.
Sarthurk
Is the Turtle Island Center in Salem a state institution, if you know. Why is the state obligated to do anything at all is such situations? Just tell the guy that he found it, he deals with finding it a home, and in Oregon I would guess there are plenty of places where that could happen.
DeleteI'm sure that there are zoos that would take the cub, saving the government thousands of dollars in precious resources.
ReplyDeleteSome time ago a girl in CA was prosecuted for picking up a sick bird to take it to a vet; she or her mother mentioned it in a checkout line at a supermarket, and someone overheard the conversation & reported it to the police, IIRC. So helping sick wildlife is a crime now; don't even mention the trouble you can get into by picking up a feather!
ReplyDeleteSeems to me we have an overabundance of government. I doubt that Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone would have been bothered with this sort of idiocy, and I'd like to see our society moving back in that direction!