Page 31 - Wyoming's Grizzly Harvest - The Story the State Wants to Bury with the Bears

Wyoming’s Grizzly Harvest it was terminal for the bear that Ellsbury had set out to kill for fun. Judge Waters deemed that the “unfortunate situation” required Ellsbury to pay $10,000 in restitution, $220 of a maximum $1,000 for firing “from, upon, along, or across a public road,” and $40 in court costs. Each week for the next five years or so, Ellsbury will pay roughly the equivalent of a couple of tanks of gas for a WGFD pick-up, $150 per week until his debt is paid. Judge Waters gave Ellsbury a deferral on the charge of taking a grizzly without a license and placed him on probation for a year. Twelve months later the case was dismissed, as the convicted “bear management specialist” did not reoffend. “We were the first to draw attention to this incident when it happened, and this is the clearest demonstration possible that Wyoming Game and Fish is not fit to assume the management of grizzlies,” said GOAL Tribal Coalition spokesman, Donovin Sprague. “It also shows how fatally flawed the judgment of the US Fish and Wildlife Service is in promoting the falsehood that Wyoming can be entrusted with the future of the Great Bear,” he continued. Sprague, a Minnecoujou Lakota author and professor, knows something about the power of grizzlies. He is a direct descendant of High Backbone (aka Hump), who was referred to as “the grizzly” when he mentored his nephew, Crazy Horse, who was then called “the cub.” 31