Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1904 — BEARS ARE BAD IN ALASKA. [ARTICLE]

BEARS ARE BAD IN ALASKA.

Their Ravages Among Cattle and Sheep Are Most Destructive. From Alaska comes a Macedonian cry for help to put a stop to the ravages of the big bear in that peninsula. Senate? Foster, of Washington, has received the plea, and in mentioning it says that if President Roosevelt wants a glorious hunt for bruin he can tell when the great game is plentiful. The Alaska variety of hear is said to weigh from 1,”>00 to 1,800 pounds. A recent letter in Mr. Foster's mail from Seattle tells the story. “We shipped 300 head of cattle and 9,100 breeding ewes to Kodiae, Alaska, last spring,” writes a firm of packers from that city. “The hears have been getting Into the hunch and have killed 503 up to date. During the mixup about twelve hears were slain. About thirty days ago two hears got into the slice] and after killing twenty-one sheep ant-, tearing the coat off one man the hears were killed. The United States marshal on hearing of this liad all our men arrested for killing the hears. Five of our men were compelled to stand trial at considerable expense to ns. “The hears are very numerous on the Island,” concludes this letter, ‘and since they have tasted >lieep the sheep are badly scared and are continually piling up. Unless something is done with tin* hears they will put qs out of business," Senator Foster is puzzled as to just how he can help his constituents In tliolr plight. They assert that “a bounty of at least $5 a head should he placed on hears for a year or two in order to clean /them out.”