I don't fully understand the purpose of using a dog to bear hunt. Duck hunting, yes....(retrievers), but bear hunting?! I can only see the bear getting peeved and trying to hurt the dog, or running from the dog and then the hunter still has to track down both his dog and the bear.
If you just let your dog loose to 'find a bear', it's likely it'll find anything in the wild... wolves, cougers, ect. The money and 'worth' of the dogs obviously means more to him than the dogs life. He can hunt a bear without the dogs, so I wouldn't even classify them in the same category as livestock, nor should he be reimbursed.
Jeff Corwin just hosted a very good special on wolves a while ago.
~Kimmy, Zam, Logan, Raptor, Nimrod, Mei, Jasper, Esme, & Lucy Inara
RIP Kia, Chipper, Morla, & June
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