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All Coexistence Articles
Humans perceive that animals have emotions that we can recognize - fear, pain, longing, loneliness. But, for generations, we have been told by scientists that any attempt to describe animal emotions in ways humans can understand is anthropomorphism and scientifically wrong-headed. This makes us feel guilty. When we respond to what appear to be emotions in our pets or in wild beings we meet, we feel as if we're engaging in illicit sentimentality.
Dear Editor: I would like to express my sympathy to the community of Whistler concerning Jeanie's death......
Dear Editor,
RE: "No punchline to 'A bear walks into a pizza shop...,'" Question Editorial, Oct. 6.
I am the Bear Aware community coordinator for Whistler. I would like to commend Ms. Miller on her excellent editorial from Oct. 6.
The opinion piece highlights the severe consequences possible both to the bear and to the community as a result of the black bear wandering into Fat Tony's Pizza. Her editorial does a great job of describing the extreme level of habituation exhibited by the bear, and the lack of public education surrounding the incident.
Three bear cubs are learning to live without their mother, who was shot by conservation officers after the foursome was found foraging for food in a Coquitlam schoolyard last week. The nine-month-old cubs are now adjusting to their temporary home at Critter Care Wildlife Society in Langley.
A new online map is giving people in Kamloops a way to keep tabs on bears making their way into the city.
The map shows all bear sightings reported to conservation officers over the past two weeks, as well as the food sources that lured the animals into the city.
WILSON — Grand Teton National Park has closed portions of the road between Moose and Wilson because of the presence of feeding grizzly bears.
Bears are feeding on chokecherry bushes and other plants in the area. Intermittent closures have been in effect since last Friday because people have been parking their vehicles too close to the bears.
As if Whistler's resident black bears didn't already have huge challenges ahead this fall, an international media circus last week only served to trivialize the animals' plight and fuel public ignorance.
Reporters from Vancouver, across Canada, into the U.S. and as far away as the U.K. delighted in the story of a bear wandering into Whistler's Fat Tony's Pizza and eating several pies while onlookers shot video and laughed at the scene.
After years of actively working towards making Whistler visitors and residents more bear smart, as well as taking steps to make the town more bear proof, this week Whistler was recognized by the provincial government as one of only four "Bear Smart" communities in B.C.
Joining Squamish and Kamloops, the first two communities accepted into the program in 2009, Whistler and Lions Bay received the designation from B.C.'s Minister of Environment Terry Lake on Thursday (Sept. 29).
Local black bear researchers are predicting a wave of increased bear activity in the Village and valley this fall due to the worst berry crop Whistler has seen in almost two decades.
Experts are pleading with locals to be extra careful by safely disposing of garbage, not having bird feeders, keeping dog food inside and keeping areas around the house clean.
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - State wildlife officials say a 2-year-old male grizzly bear that had been captured after breaking into a bee yard east of Deer Lodge has died of complications from the immobilization medications administered to the bear.
Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear management specialist Jamie Jonkel says the 280-pound bear had broken into a bee yard, protected by an electric fence, multiple times last week. The bear was captured Sunday by the U.S. Wildlife Services and handled by FWP. It died Tuesday.
Jonkel says biologists had planned to relocate the bear to a site in the South Fork of the Flathead River valley.
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Bear No. 646 was eventually tracked to a location 1.7 miles southwest of the trapping/mauling site. It was shot dead from a helicopter by U.S. Wildlife Services at 7:15 a.m. on June 19.
After the incident at Kitty Creek, all bear research trapping operations were halted for 50 days until new protocol was established by now-retired IGBST head Chuck Schwartz. Even with the layoff, officials managed to capture a record 95 grizzlies in 2010, 75 of those for bad behavior. In all, 295 grizzly-human conflicts were reported in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), the most since record-keeping began in 1992.
For more than two decades, Simon Jackson's life has centred on 400 bears. When he was 7, he saw his first wild bear, a Kodiak, while on a camping trip with his parents. The camping trip ignited Mr. Jackson's interest in bears and at the age of 13 he began his 16-year campaign to save the spirit bear, also known as the Kermode bear, named after Frank Kermode, former director of the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria.
Jeanie is a Whistler icon. But the 20-something black bear with a swath of white fur across her chest and eyes that seem to be lined with shadow is unfazed by her fame.
She does her best to tolerate the town-folk who have unofficially adopted her. She is photographed by tourists, gawked at from chairlifts, edged off trails by mountain bikers and awakened by heavy equipment. She ventures into Whistler Village occasionally - when she needs food for herself and her cubs and can't get enough in the mountains.
Recently, I was drawn to reflect upon the work that I have been doing with the Get Bear Smart Society. We have seen some tremendous improvements since the 1990s and I am so incredibly proud to be a part of the bear smart movement.
Most of our success can be contributed to education. When people know better, they do better. When people make the connection between their actions and an outcome, they can adjust their actions. It is a process; part of realizing our role in our community and also as part of the greater ecosystem and our natural environment. It is about taking responsibility.
PORT COQUITLAM - Port Coquitlam is now enforcing bear regulations in its solid waste bylaw on both the north and south sides of the city for the first time, according to a press release from the city.
Bear regulations have been enforced on the north side since they were introduced in 2009. Lately, however, an increasing number of bears have been spotted in south side neighbourhoods - especially near the Coquitlam River and Colony Farm.
You can tell a person where the fruit is but you can't make them pick. The one's who always seem to be around and picking at this time of year are the ones with the heavy black coats - that is, if we don't beat them to buffet.
Apples, pears, plums, apricots... pretty much the same stuff we grow and consume, are bear magnets and it's no surprise the omnivores would enjoy the fruits as much as we do.
Four years ago the Alaska Legislature offered Gov. Sarah Palin and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game a special deal: $400,000 to "educate" voters on predator control. The money -- spent mostly on a video, glossy brochures and public presentations -- was meant to persuade and reassure Alaskans that predator control is essential and effective.
Firmly convinced he's doing the right thing, the new director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation at Fish and Game, Corey Rossi, is taking predator control to new levels. For the first time since statehood, Alaska has targeted grizzly bears for large-scale population reductions, not by hunters but by agents of the state.
British Columbia's coastal grizzly bears often have a hard time securing their life requisites, as humans interfere with much of their day-to -day existence. Grizzlies face a myriad of threats, from the degradation of their habitat by industrial forestry, to their direct killing via trophy hunting. They also face fierce competition for their most important food source, wild salmon, from commercial and sport fisheries.
That competition may have gotten more extreme this summer, as BC's north coast commercial salmon fishermen have discarded over 20% (by weight) of their catch, including 1.4 million pounds (636 metric tons) of chum salmon. Many of these fish are from stocks that federal fisheries scientists have described as 'conservation concern'. One-half of these chum discards came from areas in and around the Great Bear Rainforest.
Most of the discarded fish are not expected to survive because salmon hauled up in nets and onto decks need careful handling to be released back to the water unharmed.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Nothing evokes the passion of a certain sect of Lake Tahoe residents quite like the issue of black bear management. Nevada's re cent legalization of the state's first bear hunt, coupled with the killing of a nuisance bruin in July that was captured in the Raley's parking lot, has inspired some residents to band together to formulate solutions.
While NoBearHuntNV.org is a formal organization created to oppose the bear hunt, the latest movement to center on bruin issues is more informal, consisting of a handful of local residents who are taking it upon themselves to photograph trash re ceptacles that are out of compliance with the Incline Village General Improvement District's trash ordinance.
Every spring and fall, William Housty walks the banks of the Koeye River, spreading a concoction with a smell almost guaranteed to make humans retch.
But the mixture of salmon oil, boileddown beaver juice, skunk essence and berries is irresistible to grizzly bears and, as the animals are drawn to the pungent mixture, snags of their hair, caught on strategically-placed barbed wire, tell their stories.
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