To the editor: As Christmas is approaching I am wondering what kind of stories all of the bear hunters will be telling around their Christmas trees? Will they sit and tell tales to their children of how their wonderful daddy went out and killed a bear? Will they have their children sit on the family’s brand new bear skin rug, while daddy regales them with his great adventure? I wonder if dad will also tell his children that the rug on the floor, or the head on his wall, has orphaned cubs out in the woods and that those babies will probably die over the winter, thanks to their wonderful dad. Will he tell them about the little cub, whose head is hanging on their living room wall, and how just maybe he didn’t kill this little baby on the first shot, or maybe not even on the second shot, and how much this little baby must have suffered? Any mother, be it human or animal, is going to try to protect her babies so I can only imagine, being a mother myself, what that would be like to see your baby shot. Oh I know, some people will say it’s only an animal, but look at your pet and tell me that you would stand there and shoot their offspring? After the December 2003 hunt, I heard a hunter telling his buddies that he threw firecrackers into a den and when the mother ran out, and then tried to get back to her babies he shot her. This jerk then proceeded to tell his buddies that he said, “I told those babies they could come visit their mother, she would be in my living room?.” When I told this story at the hearing in September, a lady told me she and five other people in that room heard firecrackers going off in Wawayanda State Park during the bear hunt. On top of that, $1.2 million of our tax monies are going to help pay for this hunt. I would think that the monies would be better spent on our children, seniors and reducing taxes. Janet Kern Hewitt