In a remote wooded area near Longview, Washington, a bear turned the tables on a hunter and showed him what it’s like to be hunted.
Jerry Hause and his son were bowhunting when a black bear, who—perhaps frightened by the hunters’ noise and commotion—ran at Hause and chased him up a tree. The bear bit him on the leg before retreating. Hause wasn’t seriously injured or killed, unlike the animals he would have shot that day. PETA plans to use this surprising role reversal to send hunters a message by placing this billboard in Longview:
Leg © iStock.com/Geribody; Tree © iStock.com/ncognet0 Bear © iStock.com/Dirk Freder Forest © iStock.com/Mlenny
What Hause planned to do to animals that day was far worse than what the bear did to him. A member of the Maine Bowhunters Association estimates that 50 percent of animals who are shot with crossbows are wounded but not killed. A study of 80 radio-collared white-tailed deer found that of the 22 deer who’d been shot with “traditional archery equipment,” 11 were wounded but not recovered by hunters. These animals often experience prolonged, painful deaths.
As Bill Maher said about hunting, “Is it really a sport if you have all the equipment and your opponent doesn’t know a game is going on?” Even with that disadvantage, it seems that animals were victorious this time.
