This is reference to Gail Roberts’ letter to the editor in the Sun Journal (Oct. 10).

To start with, the bear in question was treed by Portland police officers and their canine. They are not trained to handle wildlife, as is the Warden Service. And she should know that the Warden Service personnel are paid by hunters and fishermen who buy licenses and permits, not the everyday taxpayer.

I doubt the bear was scavenging human food as she wrote. It probably wandered in on its own. Warden Rick LaFlamme took a bad situation in a crowded part of the city and did what had to be done for the safety of its citizens.

People who do not hunt or fish (and it appears that Roberts is neither hunter nor fisherman) might not know why the bear had to be destroyed for public safety. She talks about tranquilizing and removing the bear. I suspect Warden LaFlamme did not have the equipment to do that — something that Roberts would know if she were a hunter or fisherman.

Again, at the end of her letter, she refers to tax dollars as paying the salaries of Warden Service personnel. She should get some education as to what Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and its personnel are all about. She is just another reader who is way out in left field when it comes to the Fisheries and Wildlife Department.

I wonder if she is against the traps and bait used in lobstering?

Kenneth Scribner, Durham


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