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Letter: Get the facts before you condemn the proposed grizzly hunt

(Alan Rogers/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP, file) In this Sept. 25, 2013, file photo, a grizzly bear cub searches for fallen fruit beneath an apple tree a few miles from the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Mont. A judge will decide whether the Lower 48 states' first grizzly bear hunting season in more than four decades will open as scheduled the weekend of Aug. 31, 2018.

I was sent a link to a letter to the editor appearing in The Salt Lake Tribune about how the grizzly bear hunt was “sick and wrong.”

Regardless of subjective opinion, there were three serious errors the writer made in terms of facts and reality. I would like to take a minute to address them.

First, she claims that the quota consisted of 13 females in Wyoming and one male in Idaho. This is grossly wrong. The actual quota is 12 males and one female in Wyoming and one male in Idaho. If a female is shot in Wyoming, the season shuts down immediately.

She then proceeds to claim that hunters will be allowed to hunt hibernating bears and their cubs. This is completely false. The hunting season doesn't even overlap with the hibernation season and cubs are off limits. She is mistakenly referring to the regulation in Alaska that allows indigenous Yu’pik hunters to hunt them in that manner as they have for thousands of years.

And last, she claims that she may have seen a grizzly sow with cubs in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She did not understand that this was a black bear in cinnamon color phase. Grizzly bears will have a prominent shoulder bump and a concave face.

These need to be addressed as these decisions should be based on facts and reality and not misinformed knee-jerk reactions.

Austin Alan Farley, Farmington

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