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All Conservation Articles
The death of Brian Matayoshi in a grizzly bear charge last summer was a classic conundrum for the people who work toward the day bears and humans can share the northern Rocky Mountains. "We are providing education, but it's not being received," Chris Servheen told the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee at its winter meeting in Missoula on Wednesday. As coordinator for grizzly recovery with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Servheen keeps track of bear incidents throughout the Rocky Mountains. And this year's run-ins appear to show we have successful strategies to avoid conflict, but we're not using them.
The interagency grizzly bear committee is meeting in Missoula. Experts from the United States and Canada are exploring ways to ease pressures between grizzlies and humans.
Call them Canada's billion dollar bears. While it's no secret that polar bears have captured Canadians' hearts, they've apparently got us by the purse strings, too. Canadians would be willing to pay $6.3 billion per year - $508 per household - to ensure the polar bears do not disappear, according to a report commissioned by Environment Canada.
The majestic but vulnerable polar bear has been declared a "species of special concern" under Canada's Species at Risk Act.
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.
A former Canmore author came to town to shed light on what he sees as the way forward for grizzly bears in the area.
Jeff Gailus author of the Grizzly Manifesto and, a forthcoming title, Little Black Lies, spoke to the role that he sees for Parks Canada, given what he characterized as an ineffective effort by the province of Alberta to protect its bears.
Vacation homeowners in Elkford, B.C., have been asked to search for white bear fur that may have caught on their decks or trees, to help scientists discover the genetic secrets of three white bear cubs seen in the town this fall.
Residents are also being urged to clear their garbage and fruit trees to stop the rare bears becoming hooked on human food sources.
Chloe O'Loughlin is welcoming the B.C. Liberal government's "huge announcement" that it plans to legislate a ban on mining and oil and gas development in the Flathead River Valley.
But the Vancouver-based environmentalist cautions that the move is just a "good first step", as more needs to be done to ensure the area in the province's southeastern corner is protected.
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).
CALGARY - Some of the world's foremost bear experts are looking at new ways to prevent grizzlies from getting killed along railway tracks inside Banff National Park.
A dozen bears have been killed and a half dozen cubs orphaned in the last decade and experts estimate there are now only between 45 and 60 grizzlies left in the park.
Last year, Alberta reclassified the species as threatened because of rapidly dwindling numbers.
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.
Yosemite National Park - A video of a pair of adorable bear cubs who delighted visitors at Yosemite National Park, where they were filmed wrestling in the middle of the road, has gone viral receiving hundreds of thousands of views in just a few days.According to the the video description the mother bear and her cubs were filmed by park visitors who were returning from a day hike at Hetch Hetchy, a popular destination for hikers in the California national forest.
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.
Alberta environmental groups called on the provincial government Monday to reduce the number of roads and trails in bear habitats.
Pointing to two recent studies, the groups said the concentration of roads in some areas exceeds the province's own limits. And they say more roads means more access for the public, which is putting more pressure on the bears.
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.
Removing grizzly bears from Endangered Species Act protection in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem would be premature and not based on known science, the head of a regional conservation group said last week.
Greater Yellowstone Coalition Executive Director Mike Clark made the comments Thursday while on a trip to Jackson.
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.
NEW SHARON, Maine - Nestled on a hillside behind their A-frame home, Dawn Brown and her husband, Michael, run the best bear rehabilitation facility you've never heard of.
There are no visitors queueing at the fence, waiting to get a glimpse of rollicking black bear cubs that are serving their time in a wooded 3-acre pen before being reintroduced to the wild. There is no admission fee. The public is not welcome. A sign on the steep, dirt driveway tells all who approach that they're on a private way.
A surge of problem bears on the North Shore is causing headaches for conservation officers, as a poor berry crop has driven the animals into populated areas.
So far, eight bears have been killed on the North Shore, compared to 10 last year and one the year before.
Conservation officers and RCMP have been called to three instances where bears have entered people's houses, including one on Tuesday on Brockton Crescent in North Vancouver where a woman was trapped inside the home as the bear rummaged through the kitchen.
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