Forget lifted trucks, gold chains and tribal tattoos. If you want to assert your masculinity in as raw and awesome a manner as possible these days, you have to get out and spear hunt a bear like manly-men did in the good old days. If you are thinking this premise sounds too absurd to be true, you are mistaken.
A former U.s. javelin athlete named Josh Bowmar trudged out to a spot in the woods of northern Alberta not long ago, baited a bear, killed it with a large homemade spear, when its back was turned to him, occupied by the bait set up to attract it.
What a feat of bravery. So brave, in fact, that nobody else has accomplished such a feat, on record, in Alberta. The circumstances of the bear-spearing are so unique, that Alberta Fish and Game Association president Wayne Lowry admitted it never had to be dealt with in legislation before. It will be, though.
This coming fall, the Alberta Fish and Game Association plans to impose a ban against spear hunting animals, in response to Mr. Bowmar’s vainglorious attempts at living out some Arcadian dream of hunting like one of his distant ancestors.
Throughout the video of Bowmar’s hunt, he’s jubilant and near hysterically happy with himself. He insists that he quickly and humanely killed the bear, by “smoking” it with the spear. He later retrieves the weapon he used, drenched in bear blood.
Although he claimed that his killing of the creature was humane, his assertions are hardly water tight. Between the time the animal was hit by the spear and when it died, it ran 60 yards, ripped the weapon out and had some of its insides start slipping out, on account of the wound Bowmar inflicted. Bowmar didn’t even go find the bear to confirm the kill until the morning after, several hours after hurling a spear at it. Take from that what you will.
Eventually, after getting 200,000 views on YouTube, it occurred to Bowmar, through the backlash of many, that there were plenty of people who didn’t share his enthusiasm about his feat.
For the heck of it, I took a peek at some of the derision and invectives directed at Bowmar, recorded from comments on his video. While most of the responses were run-of-the-mill claims that what he’d done was animal cruelty, there will always be weirdos who stalk the Internet. For instance, one charming commenter stated that he was making it his life’s mission to “hunt (Bowmar) down…and do to (Bowmar) what (he) did to that bear,” and to keep Bowmar’s head as a trophy. I see you’re still keeping it classy, Internet vigilantes!
One lucky British news agency scored an interview with Bowmar. In their correspondence, Bowmar pled a passionate defence of his archaic, dangerous hunting style, suggesting that a spear the size of his, at the close range at which he used it (within 10 yards), was arguably more ethical than arrows, which are still legal, and will remain legal under Alberta’s hunting laws.
But that argument falls apart when you take into account the fact that not everyone is a former javelin champion, and not everyone will have as much luck with a spear as they would with arrows, which can be fired at a far greater, safer distance.
Let’s not forget that Bowmar achieved this bear slaying in the spring, a season when female bears are raising cubs, something Wayne Pacelle, chief executive of the Humane Society, was quick to condemn.
While I don’t care for Bowmar’s rationale, Pacelle had a rebuttal that was far more interesting, when he claimed Bowmar was a “sociopath,” for what he did.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against hunting. Some of the most delicious meat you can treat your palette to is harvested from the kinds of wild animals you can find trotting and stalking around Canada’s wilderness. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with such a hobby, so long as it’s done ethically and with proper precautions in place.
Sure, there’s risk involved, but what Bowmar did was maximize that risk— for the bear and himself. And to be fair, that’s a pretty stupid thing to do.
