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All Coexistence Articles
Relying on "black gold" to nourish their Greater Trail gardens has led a couple of friends to creating bear-proof composters.
Now, after solving their own critter problems, a team of gardeners swears by their smell-resistant composters that not only look attractive in their backyard but also keep the bears away.
GULL LAKE -- Cottagers in bear country have plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the controversial theory that feeding black bears can keep them away from populated areas.
At this cottage development southeast of Grand Beach, Helen Toews and her neighbour, Alice Nixdorf, said bears regularly walk through their development at least twice day -- early morning and late afternoon.
But Nixdorf said bears weren't a problem here until officials closed the local dump.
WINNIPEG - A wildlife biologist from Minnesota says black bear problems this summer can be solved without killing any more bears.
Lynn Rogers, director of the Wildlife Research Institute and the North American Bear Centre in Ely, Minnesota, said studies show that putting food out for bears at a designated site - a practice known as diversionary feeding - can keep black bears away from populated areas but doesn't condition the bears to human food.
BANFF, Alta. - It's been a deadly year so far, for wildlife in the national and provincial parks of the Rocky Mountains.
In all, 10 bears have been killed by humans in Banff, Kootenay and Yoho national parks, and three of those were grizzly bears hit by cars or trains.
And while not dead, another grizzly is lost from the local population after it was relocated to a more remote region of Alberta for killing a sheep dangerously close to where children were sleeping at Camp Chief Hector in Bow Valley Provincial Park.
Dear Editor,
Riding the Wizard Chair en route to Rendezvous, posed in sukasana (easy pose), I retreated into the Aug. 4 issue of The Question and there it was on the front page: "Three black bears killed in past week."
My heart stopped. My Zen moment vanished into thin air as the ache in my heart and throat tensed my body realizing this is the reason I haven't seen them over the past week. While I struggled with this reality, over the next rise, the biggest one of the three regulars was grazing on yellow flowers, blissful among the tall grasses and flowers
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. (AP) - Incline Village resident plan a candlelight vigil to protest the killing of a black bear by Nevada wildlife officials.
The event follows the July 24 death of a 5-year-old male black bear that residents called "Charlie."
The 360-pound bear was tranquilized and then shot by Nevada Department of Wildlife officials after wandering into the parking lot outside a restaurant in Incline Village.
We have an odd relationship with polar bears.
As we watch them pace inside their zoo enclosures, or marvel at their portrayal within natural history documentaries, we are drawn to their big paws, fluffy white fur and button-like black noses. We find polar bear cubs adorable.
She struggles to survive on a daily basis trying to make a living - and now she has the added pressure of raising her young ones in the busy Bow Valley.
The celebrity 22-year-old grizzly bear 64 constantly defies the odds in the Rocky Mountain park where bears continue to die at the hands of humans.
This land of rock and ice is tough for a grizzly under normal circumstances, but she miraculously manages to eke out a living on this busy landscape, all the while navigating train tracks, roads and a bustling tourist town.
Black bears are undeniably a part of the Whistler scene and are beloved by locals and tourists alike. Unfortunately, they're also the source of frustration for some, most notably the conservation officers who are forced to deal with the animals when the get into conflict with humans.
Most of the time these conflicts are not the fault of the animal but rather people who were careless in how they went about securing potential bear attractants such as garbage and bird feeders.
CTV Ottawa News' Leanne interviews, Martyn Obbart, Steve Herrero and Steven Amstrup at the International Bear Association Conference. Watch three segments here.
Plans to allow firearms in Canada's northernmost parks so people can better protect themselves from polar bears should not be extended south, experts say, despite recent incidents in British Columbia and Wyoming.
Parks Canada made headlines with the announcement this week, but Alberta guides, wildlife experts and parks staff interviewed expressed no interest in bringing a similar strategy to this region.
Let's talk trash. Specifically, yours. What do you do with it? How do you get rid of it? Do you smuggle it on the bus to get it to the nearest dumpster you can find?
Maybe you work hard every day, sorting, cleaning and composting everything that can be diverted from the landfill (good job!). Do you stash it in your garage until it emits perfume de bear-come-'n'-get-me? Leave it sitting outside your recently built new-and-improved bear-proof garbage shed when you forget your key? At the bus stop partially stuffed into the already overflowing bin, essentially baiting a bear into your 'hood?
UNION TOWNSHIP — Protesters said educating people about black bears would help calm fears and prevent bear killings like the one a week ago in Union Township.
The bear should have been tranquilized instead of being killed, said Angi Metler, an advocate for bears and one of the coordinators for today’s rally.
"You don’t have to resort to lethal means," said Metler, executive director of the Animal Protection League of New Jersey and a member of the Bear Education and Resource Group board of directors.
Let's face it: If you care about the environment, you've got a lot of reasons to be bummed out. Is the sorry state of the planet dragging you into the dumps? John Fraser, a psychologist, architect, and educator with the Institute for Learning Innovation, is one of a small group of psychologists interested in the mental health of conservationists themselves -- how professional activists, environmental educators, and conservation-oriented researchers handle the daily evidence of environmental destruction.
The independent assessment, written by WCS Senior Conservation Scientist Dr. John Weaver, is a compilation and synthesis of the latest information on these species - and how climate change may affect them - from 30 biologists in the region and from nearly 300 scientific papers. In addition, Weaver spent four months hiking and riding horseback through these remote roadless areas to evaluate their importance for conservation.
The Crown of the Continent is a trans-border ecosystem of dramatic landscapes, pristine water sources, and diverse wildlife that stretches more than 250 miles along the Rocky Mountains from Glacier National Park-Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana north to the Canadian Rockies. Weaver focused his assessment on public lands in the Montana portion -one of the most spectacular and intact ecosystems remaining in the lower 48 states. Since 1910 when Glacier National Park was established, citizens and government representatives have worked hard to protect the core wildlands and wildlife in this region.
A little black bear cub that came to the Northern Lights Wildlife Shelter near Smithers has been returned to the wild from where she came.
When Abby arrived at the Shelter in October, the cub was on 10 pounds, and had suffered a severe injury. Angelika Langen, one of the owner / operators of the Shelter explains what caused the injury. "She had been caught, in what we assume in a snare and by trying to get out when that wire tightened around her neck, she pulled part of her neck and her ears off, and was in pretty rough shape when we got her, and we doctored her and she came all around, kept growing and today we set her free and let her go back out again where she belongs."
As wildlife educators call for Nelsonites to do a better job of managing bear attractants in the city, a bylaw that would restrict when residents can put their garbage out is headed to city council.
Local Bear Aware coordinator Joanne Siderius has asked council to add a dawn-to-dusk clause to its garbage bylaw and make it a fineable offense to put trash on the curb before the day of collection.
The request originally came before council last November, but Siderius says the city’s latest brush with grizzlies shows Nelson still needs to do more to minimize bear conflict.
Jessy Coltrane, the Anchorage-area wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, pulled her big white pickup onto Tudor Road and headed for one of the city's worst bear-problem neighborhoods: Muldoon.
The cab of her truck was packed with gun cases and rain gear. The bed held a dog kennel to haul moose calves and one very large net.
Each summer has a similar, chaotic tempo, she said. The bear calls begin in May. Then the moose start giving birth, and that goes on all of June while the bear calls keep ramping up. Mostly it's black bears scaring up trouble in neighborhoods. Occasionally, there's more serious trouble with a brown bear. The wildlife crescendo comes at the end of July and then things drop off once berry season starts and bears get more interested in blueberries than old pizza boxes, she said.
Parks Canada has implemented speed reductions on part of the Trans-Canada Highway, near Lake Louise, to protect wildlife.
Effective immediately, drivers will have to reduce their speed in certain areas that are deemed high-risk.Posted speeds of 70 km/hr have been put in place and are expected to remain until Thanksgiving.
This is great to hear interested groups meeting to discuss this topic. Keep in mind however that there is a long list of species getting killed on the highway as well as bears. From a human safety perspective, I suppose hitting a bear head-on is the most likely to cause us injury, (along with deer, causing that air bag to go off).
So how many deer, skunks, raccoons, mice, squirrels, bobcats, snakes, frogs (well, very little remains of the red-legged frog in the pine crest area at all), just to mention a small few, end up road kill?
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