The state of California has proven to be the leading state to "protect predators". After all, they were the first state to protect a non-endangered big game predator, the mountain Son. Now their director wants to make it extremely difficult to hunt another predator, bear. Following are excerpts from a statement issued by Boyd Gibbons, Director of California Department of Fish and Game.

The debate over hound hunting of bears has reached that tree, and now we-not the bears-must climb it."

"In California, hunters take only about 1,000 bears each year, some two-thirds by hunters using hounds."

"...the numbers of bears killed by hunters is relatively small.."

"...the hunting of bears with hounds presents us with a dilemma considerably more profound than a scientific one. This is a moral dilemma.

"But the hunting of bears with hounds presents us with something more than a private choice. It is a challenge to our collective conscience as hunters, who respect the animals we hunt."

"...a bear is pursued by the dogs until it can find no escape and takes illusory refuge in a tree. At that point the hunt-and, to be sure, it is usually a difficult and exhausting one—ends. All that is left is the shooting of an animal out of a tree to which it has been chased and cornered. I cannot and shall not defend that practice, for it diminishes all hunting. Hound hunting is an old tradition, and I do not lightly dismiss custom and tradition. But it is not enough to defend a form of hunting simply because it is traditional"

"As you know, legislation has been proposed to ban the use of hounds in the hunting of bear in California. The Department has taken no position on this bill, largely because the question of how bears are hunted..."