The Big Game Commercial Services Board was scheduled to review public comments, make final changes and adopt the new requirements as we were going to press with this issue. A copy of the final requirements will be available at the end of April. We'll post them to our web site at that time.
Here at The Hunting Report, we applaud the Alaskan professional hunting community for moving forward on these requirements. We just hope, somewhere along the line, the community will devote some time to discussing when it is proper for a guide or assistant guide to shoot a client's animal. A written statement on this would be a good idea.
We stress this matter because we believe the Alaska professional hunting community is out of step with the rest of the professional hunting community in its readiness to shoot client's game, particularly bears. In the past we have used the term trigger-happy. For certain, we think trigger-happiness on the part of an assistant guide contributed to a fatal accident not so long ago. We also know a small but significant number of hunters are unhappy each year to have had their game shot at needlessly by Alaskan guides.
We pursue this point of view in a constructive spirit, and we hope Alaskan guides accept it that way.........(continued)
