Alberta, Canada – Killing a bear with a hand-thrown spear isn’t an everyday feat—but the government of Alberta, Canada, is not impressed by the prowess of American hunter Josh Bowmar.
The government promised to introduce a ban on “archaic” and “unacceptable” hunting with spears after video surfaced of Bowmar, a former javelin athlete, killing a bear from more than 12 yards away with a 7-foot spear that had a GoPro camera attached, the Edmonton Journal reports.
The wounded bear, which had been attracted by a bait bin, ran off. In a YouTube video that has now been taken offline, Bowmar says he returned the next day and found the body of the bear around 150 feet from where it was hit.
The video sparked controversy—and lurid headlines like “Warped Hunter Kills Starving Bear with Seven Foot Homemade Spear” in British tabloids—not just for the manner of the kill, but for Bowmar’s celebration, the CBC reports.
“That’s going to be some epic footage,” he exclaims. “Yeah, I got mad penetration. That’s a dead bear.” The Humane Society of the US also weighed in, referring to the Ohio man as “this year’s version of Walter Palmer,” the American dentist who killed Cecil the Lion, notes the Dayton Daily News.
Bowmar says he was surprised by the reaction. The kill was “as humane and ethical as one could get in a hunting situation on big game animals,” he says, adding that “no one cares more about these animals than us hunters, especially me,” and that the bear’s hide and meat did not go to waste.
(A California woman angered her neighbors by having a bear shot.)
This article originally appeared on Newser: He Killed a Bear With a Spear. The Video Caused Outrage
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