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All Education 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.
GREAT FALLS - An increasing grizzly bear population is expanding east from the Rocky Mountain Front in western Montana as individual bears discover that the plains contain abundant food, a grizzly bear expert says.
Mike Madel of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks said some bears appear to have discovered that food sources are better on the plains than in the mountains. He noted that in the past young bears trying to make it on their own were showing up on the plains, but now there are adult females that are passing their knowledge to their cubs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A California hiker killed by a grizzly in Yellowstone National Park on July 6 - the first fatal bear mauling in Yellowstone in a quarter century, and one of two attacks in the park this year - may have unwittingly provoked the bear by screaming and running away, according to a final report released Tuesday.
The park report suggested that the 58-year-old victim, Brian Matayoshi, of Torrance, California, might have survived his encounter if he and his wife, Marylyn, had heeded posted advisories.
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.
B.C. conservation officers shot 17 bears in the Christina Lake area this summer, and they suspect many were the famous "pot bears" found at a marijuana grow-op last year.
Insp. Aaron Canuel says three times the number of bears were euthanized in the area this year, compared to past years. Most were shot because they had become a nuisance and were too comfortable with people, he said.
The one-time bear man of Alaska's capital city pleaded guilty to a single count of feeding game last week.
As his penalty for trying to make pets of about a dozen black bears, 65-year-old Arnold W. Hanger was ordered to pay the state $4,000 and perform 80 hours of community-service work for the Wildlife Division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. In addition, he will spend two years on probation.
A 39-year-old hunter killed by a wounded grizzly bear yelled out to draw the 400-pound male bear toward him in an effort to keep it from attacking his young hunting partner, the man's family said.
"They both shot it and it kept coming," Steve Stevenson's mom, Janet Price, said on Saturday. "Steve yelled at it to try and distract it, and it swung around and took him down. It's what my son would have done automatically, for anybody."
Secure attractants. It's a concept as simple as wearing your seatbelt, and yet for some campers in the bear-heavy areas around Whistler, it's not considered until after a bear has rifled through their campsite or vehicle.
But for those in the Cal-Cheak area, there's only so much campers can do without bear-resistant food storage bins.
In the Whistler area, Vaccinium berries - huckleberries and blueberries - are roughly five weeks behind, which means as we near mid-September there is no high elevation berry crop.
The highest elevation at which bears are now berry feeding (Sept. 9) is 4,200 ft, that's usually where bears are berry feeding in late July and early August.
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.
WHITEFISH - More grizzly bears are keying in on unprotected chicken coops in western Montana, with increasingly deadly consequences - both for the bears and the pilfered poultry.
The rise in bear-related chicken raids is ruffling the feathers of state and federal wildlife managers who are forced to move or kill bears that receive a food reward, be it from a trash can, a fruit orchard or a bird pen. The conflicts are entirely avoidable, managers say, but it's the responsibility of landowners to buck the disturbing trend.
Thank God for the bear spray.
Without it, Kevin and Julie Boyer probably wouldn't be alive. Instead, they'd have likely shared the fates of two other hikers who were attacked and killed by grizzly bears this summer inside Yellowstone National Park.
But they did have bear spray. They survived. And they're here to share their story.
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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