Alberta to Ban Spear Hunting After Bear Video Sparks Outrage

The 13-minute video, posted on June 5 to the Bowmar Bowhunting YouTube account, had been viewed more than 200,000 times as of August 15.

Mr Bowmar, a former javelin thrower, launches the spear and hits the bear, reacting in celebratory disbelief – at one point brought to tears – by the action.

The hunting party left the area afterward, due to darkness and rain, Bowmar later says. “He’s going down, I drilled him flawless”, Bowmar shouts after the spear enters the bear’s side.

Commenters on YouTube were livid. At least one comment threatened to do to the hunter what he did to the bear.

“The hunter seems to have viewed the hunt as an opportunity for entertainment”, Roland Lines, Alberta SPCA’s communications manager, told the Toronto Star.

An Ohio hunter is being blasted as “this year’s version of Walter Palmer” after proudly killing a bear with a spear in Alberta, Canada.

President of Alberta, Fish and Game Association, Wayne Lowry, says it has been uncommon for hunters to use spears and “because it is so uncommon, it’s never really had to be dealt with in the legislation, but knowing that it is being done in other countries and other jurisdictions we figured it would show up here sooner or later”.

“The type of archaic hunting seen in the recently posted video.is unacceptable”, Alberta’s Ministry of Environment and Parks told the CBC in a written statement.

An American hunter in northern Alberta is drawing outrage from animal rights activist and government officials after hunting a bear with a spear and videoing the take-down with a GoPro camera..

He also said that a spear “will kill an animal twice as fast as an arrow will”. He said he’s received hundreds if not thousands of death threats and has had to restrict his social media accounts because of the threats.

In the following footage, Bowmar attempted to track the bear, but found only his bloody spear.

British tabloids and online discussion groups have been quick to condemn not just the method of killing the bear, but also Bowmar’s enthusiastic approach in the video.

“It’s extremely frustrating to me”, Bowmar, 26, of Columbus, Ohio, said Monday by phone.

The backlash to the video comes after the killings of a Cincinnati Zoo gorilla, Harambe, and Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe sparked massive protests against the shooters. It’s clearly not. I didn’t do anything illegal. After allegedly leaving the bear to slowly die for hours, he and a companion are filmed posing over the animal’s corpse with its guts pouring from its fatal wound. “The truth is I honestly care more about animals and hunting than anybody could”.

Fitness fanatic Josh Bowmar said he was maintaining a spear-hunting “heritage” and he cared more than anyone for the welfare of his prey. He said it’s wrong to criticize him for hunting close-up with a spear given the damage that could be done from a distance with a gun. He added that if he just wanted to kill, he could have shot the bear from half a kilometer (one-third of a mile) away without it having a chance to escape. Yet I chose a weapon whose effective killing range is only ten yards (nine meters).