JERICHO – Vermont bears are in the news again today after yet another administrative tussle with the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife. This latest ursine uprising comes in response to new regulations on bear hunting in Vermont that were approved by the state last week. A spokesperson for the bears strongly denied the claim by wildlife officials that the revised rules would ”reduce conflicts between humans and bears.”
“They’ve got it all backward,” she argued. “We bears were here first. They keep forgetting that possession is nine-tenths.”
In a stinging formal rebuke to the regulators, the bears have delivered a seven-hundred page manifesto challenging the new rules. The document was endorsed by more than two-thirds of Vermont’s six-thousand black bears and one visiting polar bear (who has since applied for residency). “It’s just a first draft,” the bruins’ spokesperson growled, “but turnabout is fair play. Wait until they see the long version. If they want paperwork, we’ll swamp them in paperwork.”
A Vermont Fish & Wildlife biologist, who did not want his name used and spoke off the record, took a placating and philosophical approach to the contretemps. “It’s really just about helping the bears,” he said, “but I am not surprised at their reaction. They’re Vermont bears. And Vermonters have always had a fierce streak of independence, going right back to the time of the Allen brothers. Why should they be any different?”
This olive branch did nothing to mollify the bears. Their spokesperson sharply rebutted the fish and wildlife fence-mending effort. “We won’t be patronized,” she said in disgust. “In the end it’s just more bureaucratic twaddle. If they really wanted to do something to help bears, they would let us carry weapons too.”
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