Sure, it’s Memorial Day Weekend, but that doesn’t stop your intrepid Underground from searching out and reporting the things you really only sorta care about reading.
Consider it a calling.
With any luck, I’ll be fishing a small, backcountry lake today.
Bear Follies
Ralph Maughan’s Wildlife News carries a story of a photographer mauled by a grizzly and her cub in Yellowstone.
Cut and dried — until you learn this is the second time the photographer’s been mauled, and the first time he faced charges for approaching a grizzly too closely.
Interestingly, check out the comments below the story on Maughan’s blog. They suggest this photographer’s prior run-ins with bears weren’t accidents.
Naturally, the Underground’s not pissed because the photographer will do himself in, but because he’ll get some bear killed too. You see, we’re supposed to be smarter than the wild animals.
Rio Grande Trout Protection
The McCloud Redband has become near and dear to my hear – just as the Rio Grande Cutthroat seems to have touched a chord over at the Trout Zone.
He reports that these endangered trout might be on the receiving end of ESA protections. Give it a read.
Rogue River Chinook in Jeopardy Again
From one of the better outdoor writers in the business (Mark Freeman of Mail-Tribune fame) comes some bummer news about the Rogue salmon runs:
That increasingly familiar sucking sound you hear along the entire Rogue River is this year’s spring chinook returns, whose early numbers are so low they again are putting the upper Rogue’s storied fishery in jeopardy.
The currently poor showing of wild spring chinook at Gold Ray Dam could trigger a second straight year of mid-season emergency closures on the already limited keeping of wild chinook.
Through May 15, the numbers of spring chinook past the dam’s counting station is about one-fourth of the average of what has reached the upper Rogue over the past decade.
Those are not numbers worth celebrating. Damn. (Don’t forget to add Freeman’s blog to your RSS feed.)
Going, Going…
Don’t know where I’m fishing today, but I think I’ve got an appointment to keep with the backcountry. See you up high, Tom Chandler.
[tags]fly fishing, fishing, bears, rogue river, salmon, rio grande trout[/tags]
Re: Bear Follies.
Can you say “Tim Treadwell”? If this guy keeps this up, he’ll probably end up suffering the same fate…
Brian
Heddon17(Quote)
He’s supposedly deeply “concerned” for bears, but he’s putting them at risk too. Bears have plenty of advocates in the form of wildlife and environmental groups, but they still get killed when humans screwup.
What they need isn’t another advocacy group. They need an enforcer. Someone like Mister T, who jumps out of the bushes when someone’s doing something stupid (like feeding bears, leaving food out at their backcountry campsite, etc.), and pummels them shouting “I pity da fool who messes with bears.”
Tom Chandler(Quote)