Spring Bear Hunting - Sample Letter to the Editor #3

(Remember to edit this letter and make it your own. Letters are more likely to be printed if they are not identical to others.)

[Date]

To the Editor,

I was disturbed to learn that spring bear hunting is allowed in [Your State]. It may sound innocuous to some, but most don’t realize the large number of cubs orphaned as a result of hunting bears in the spring – cubs who are too young to care for themselves and either die of starvation or are unable to outrun predators. 

Cubs are usually only a few months old during spring bear hunts, sometimes as young as a month old. When cubs are young their mothers can leave them for hours while they find food. Hunters who see a sow unaccompanied by cubs have no way of knowing her cubs will be left to die if he shoots her.

According to Lynn Rogers, PhD, a hunter and retired research biologist for the U.S. Forest Service, cubs orphaned in the spring can only survive without their mothers care for between a few hours to, at most, a month, depending on how old they are at the time. He says that “when a mother is killed in the spring, her cubs begin a slow death.”

This practice is entirely unacceptable and [Your State] should prohibit it immediately. 

Sincerely,

[Name]
[Title]
[Local group]