I have lived in Alaska from Ketchikan to Kotzebue over the last 26 years.

I have come to understand how important it is to value all life here as well as elsewhere. The McNeil area was set aside to not only protect the bears in this area, but to provide people an opportunity to see and understand something so great at close range.

I practice subsistence living here in this state, so I am not blind to the needs of subsistence. But bear hunting is by and large trophy hunting. To take life and to destroy a habitat, which is of great value for life's sake and economically, is morally void. There is something extremely wrong with this picture. If we do not take care of our environment and all life, giving equal protection to all life, we will be canceled also.

Jeri Rosenthal / Klawock