Not that one would want to display a head, or hide ... ; the ground-up carcass might be of interest, though, to gardeners.

It is unfortunate that Mr. O'Regan did not mention a serious social evil, which is an essential circumstance of the sport-hunting of polar bears: the poverty of most of the Inuit, including in their province of Nunavut.  Generally, they are the guides serving the sport-hunters, and they make a relatively decent living from those arrangements.

The spokespersons for the Inuit claim that there are lots of bears in Nunavut, more than ever, and so it is wrong to think of them as endangered: Come, shoot them, there are plenty!

That is very sad.  In fact, like all animals, the bears are helpless in the face of pressures of human origin.  Ironically, the melting of the ice which they need for their usual hunting practices -- which melting is of course caused by global warming -- is driving them south, and into closer concentrations: hence the false appearance of abundance.  So they are in a deadly vise, caught by human beings wherever they turn.

It certainly behooves us to do what we can to end the sport-hunting of polar bears, at least by Americans, as Mr. O'Regan recommends.

As for the situation of the Inuit, who knows?  For starters, there is collecting art, created within Inuit cooperatives; e.g.:

www.inuitart.org

Their prints are stunning.  They are not cheap, but are not altogether out of reach.  The sculptures are of course more expensive; they can command a room.  A favorite subject is the dancing polar bear, in fact.

On a not altogether unrelated matter, I am annoyed that the laudatory piece on Grist in "Outside" magazine has been able to get away with calling Grist simply an "environmentalist" news source, without commenting that animals and wildlife are generally neglected.  Sure, the title "Hey, Poacher, Leave That Squid Alone" was used as an example of the Grist staff's (DR's and/or LH's?) spooky ability to come up with terrific puns.  But that is entirely misleading.  The squid were lucky that day.

In fact, animals and wildlife are treated as a piece of fluff.  There is no commitment in Grist to covering their issues seriously.

A few writers have indeed written on animal-related subjects: e.g., Sarah van Schagen, BioD, Andrew Sharpless, Robert Delf, Jason Scorse.  And we should all be grateful to them, and any others whom I neglected to mention, for that.  But their contributions on those subjects are irregular (for no reasons reflecting negatively on them).

So long as Grist does not wish to make a serious commitment to covering stories about animals and wildlife, it should qualify its claim to be an "environmental" news source.  The editorial decision to concentrate on issues related to global warming and energy is perfectly defensible, obviously.  But those subjects hardly exhaust the interests of people interested in environmentalism more broadly understood.  It would be very helpful, and very honest, if the Grist editors were to state frankly that they are not a general "environmental" news source, that instead they are a news source for environmental news relating especially to global warming and energy.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

J.S.


We need to focus on the root causes of problems.

1. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

2. When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS.

Polar Bears are at the top of the food chain...like Humans.   The thing is, we do a better job than most of the big carnivores...and because of our flexible brains, we can do it better than them.

So, it's evolution.  It's natural that Humans would displace Polar Bears and the ecosystem will be the better for it.