© Amit PatelThe video of Ohio javelin champion Josh Bowmar throwing a heavy spear into a black bear in Alberta, Canada predictably went viral. The bear had been attracted to food that had been provided. While the animal nervously backed off a few times (as bears tend to avoid humans: the most deadly species on the planet), he finally trusted the humans nearby.[teaserbreak]
Big mistake. Bowmar threw the spear, which had a GoPro camera attached to it, assuring a “spear’s eye” view to augment the video taken by his friend.
“He’s going down,” exalts Bowmar, breaking into a happy dance. “I drilled him perfect. That was the longest throw I thought I could ever make. I just did something I don’t think anybody in the entire world has ever done and that was spear a bear on the ground on film. And, I smoked him.”
Bowmar joyously finds the spear, which fell out of the fleeing bear. “Oh yeah, I got mad penetration,” he says. “These things are absolute lethal killing machines.”
Now, Bowmar joins a list of infamous hunters, including Walter Palmer, the dentist who killed Cecil the lion; Rebecca Francis, who proudly posed with the corpse of a giraffe she had just killed; Donald Trump’s sons, who posed with the bodies of various animal victims; and so many others whose capers, viewed via the internet, triggered widespread vitriol.
Bowmar seems to believe, against all evidence, that what he did was “humane.” He displays a total lack of empathy with his victim. The bear reportedly ran some 60 yards, with the spear and some internal organs falling out along the way, before collapsing. His body wasn’t found until the following morning.
This callous behavior comes at a cost to the rest of us—including innocent animals who, like you and me, just want to live out their lives.
The best we can do is hope for laws to protect us. Alberta now plans to ban bear spearing, but similarly cruel hunting practices are still legal… and they still appeal to a small percentage in our midst.
Keep wildlife in the wild,
Barry