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All Education Articles
What we experienced through the month of May was a minimum of 64 different black bears (34 males, 23 females and nine cubs-of-the-year) funneled through Whistler's valley bottom (13 bears) and adjacent ski trails (53). Bears were lured to lower elevations (below 800 metres elevation) due to colder temperatures and a deeper, late winter snowpack prolonging the green-up that bears require in spring.
When temperatures climb, residents can expect black bear populations to follow suit, wildlife experts said.
Paul Rego, a Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection wildlife biologist stationed in Burlington, said bear populations are on the rise in the state largely in response to better habitat.
"There has been a rise in forest land," Rego said, adding that 150 years ago, Connecticut was farmland with only 20 to 25 percent forested. "We are approximately 60 percent forest now," he said.
The killing of large carnivores in North America by means of trophy hunting, whether for "sport" or "management," has been and continues to be a source of noteworthy and unrelenting controversy.
Interestingly, most of the furor appears to have little to do with the conventional battlefield of left or right ideology as the intensity of emotion attached to top predators like bears, wolves, cougars and coyotes often transcends the simplistic bifurcated politics that can mark such disputes.
After reading about the bears that were killed over the long weekend I finally had to take a stand and become part of the solution for our mountain friends.
Why is it that people are more interested in speaking up about the dog shit in Whistler than innocent animals with no voice that get killed because of dumb people? Don't forget that we live on their land and they were here way before Whistler became the skiing town it is now. What is it going to take for the black bears to be almost extinct? It makes me furious that people pull over on the side of the highway to get pictures and they are not held responsible for the bear's death. We need to fight for them and to have a law against stopping on the highway except for emergencies, with huge fines for those who break it. There should also be fines in Whistler for getting too close.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. - With the black bear death toll this spring already at eight in Nevada's Sierra valleys, regional wildlife officials are warning Tahoe residents to be extra cautious this spring when it comes to trash and food maintenance.
Carl Lackey, a wildlife biologist for the Nevada Department of Wildlife, said the department has killed eight bears this spring, mainly due to the late-season cold weather and snow conditions have pushed bears into the valleys, and residents and visitors locked up their trash or food too late, which drew the bruins into cars and homes.
Jasper National Park officials are cracking down on visitors who are feeding its black bears and grizzlies because the wild animals can become aggressive and attack humans.
Six incidents of bear feeding have been reported since the Victoria Day weekend, officials at Jasper told CBC News.
While "Don't Feed the Bears" signs have been up in the park for more than 50 years, warden supervisor Jim Mamalis said the park is noticing an increase in bear feedings.
Possibly for the first time in almost a hundred years a black bear has been seen in Carroll County. As reported in the Carroll County Times on May 26, a yearling bear was seen in the Union Mills and Westminster area.
History of Maryland black bears
When settlers arrived in Carroll County, black bears roamed statewide across Maryland. However, by the late 1800s and early 1900s, the black bear population had dropped dramatically. Settlers cleared the landscape for agriculture, industry, and timber production, resulting in most of Maryland's suitable black bear habitat being lost. Settlers feared black bears and they killed them whenever a bear was encountered. This indiscriminate killing, combined with the large-scale habitat loss and a lack of conservation laws, eliminated black bears from most parts of the state.
For more than a decade, Steve Michel's daily routine has included a drive along the secondary highways and back roads of Banff National Park.
The big metal box at his side is the first clue that the 37-year-old's forays into the park's nooks and crannies aren't for leisure: the machine, a transmitter known as radio telemetry, works with an animal's GPS collar or ear transmitter to pinpoint its precise location. The second clue is the shotgun in the vehicle's trunk, something he's thankful he's only had to use "once or twice" over his 20-year career.
An adult black bear wandering southeastern Wisconsin in recent weeks made its way into Sheboygan County late Tuesday, and no one was more surprised than Judy Matye.
"I was 10 feet from it," said Matye, who lives east of Random Lake. "I was pulling weeds down by my fire pit down there. I thought I heard something, I looked up and here's this huge bear. I couldn't even scream - I started running as fast as I could."
The Whistler RCMP and a Conservation Officer spent four hours on Saturday morning trying to convince a treed bear at the corner of Village Gate and Blackcomb Way to make a run for it, using bear bangers and other deterrents to convince the tagged bear to leave.
But with a huge crowd looking on and taking photographs, the bear kept returning to the tree and at last the RCMP and Conservation Officer decided there were no options remaining but to tranquilize the bear. The tagged bear dropped about 10 feet to the ground after being hit by the dart, but was not injured.
A Crivitz landowner says the experience two teens had with a bear on his property over the weekend is proof you can't leave food around your campsite.
"They're pretty much city boys, so they didn't want to come out and have too much to do with the bear," Wayne Franzen said.
Franzen received a call Sunday morning from his nephew and one of his friends.
Ursus maritimus—otherwise known as the polar bear—has had one bear of a month. First, a new study predicted a rapid decline in the Canadian polar bear population. As soon as next year. And by as much as 30 percent.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, a hunter shot and killed a hybrid grizzly-polar bear—dubbed the "grolar bear"—an emerging type of bear mutt that scientists say is proof that climate change-induced Arctic ice melting is forcing the furry white giants to interbreed.
ASPEN, Colorado — Some homeowners in Aspen and Pitkin County are apparently getting duped into thinking their trash haulers are providing bear-resistant containers, the state wildlife officer for the Aspen area said Thursday.
Kevin Wright of the Colorado Division of Wildlife said he has seen some heavy plastic trash containers, also known as poly containers, that don't have secure enough lids to keep bears from breaking in and getting trash.
ISLAND PARK - Just in time for summer sun and outdoor adventures here and in other areas of Greater Yellowstone, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC) has released bear avoidance and wildlife stewardship materials emphasizing bear safety techniques that can also be applied to other wildlife.
The Center for Wildlife Information (CWI), a non-profit organization headed by Chuck Bartlebaugh, coordinated the development of educational materials for the IGBC and their partners, which include state wildlife management agencies in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Washington, the Forest Service, Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the USGS Research.
A mathematical analysis for the first time has uncovered the prospect of a sudden, dramatic decline among Canadian polar bears as they starve to death.
“This is much, much different. This is not a gradual change,” said Dr. Andrew Derocher, one of the world’s leading polar bear authorities and co-author of the study. “We’re looking at a decrease by 20 or 30 per cent or even much more in a year.”
The study was released this week just as Environment Canada is meeting to decide, also for the first time, whether polar bears should be declared a species at risk.
EAGLES NEST TOWNSHIP (12 MILES WEST OF ELY) - Sue Mansfield started crying as soon as she saw the cub's face.
Even with the cub 30 feet up a cedar tree, Ely bear researcher Mansfield knew it was Hope because of its light face.
After being missing since Friday evening, with researchers holding out little hope the cub was still alive, friends of Ely bear researcher Lynn Rogers called about 6 p.m. today to say they had a lone bear cub treed. The cub came down and was captured less than two hours later.
A Whistler man faces a bylaw infraction of having his dog off leash, and possibly a charge of endangering wildlife, after RCMP officers responding to a situation were forced to shoot and kill south of Function Junction last week.
On Friday (May 21) at around 5 p.m., officers responded to complaints that several people had stopped along Highway 99 about two kilometres south of Function Junction to take pictures of a bear grazing in the ditch on the west side of the highway, RCMP Sgt. Shawn LeMay said. In addition to causing traffic congestion, witnesses said one woman was getting dangerously close to the animal, he said.
Conservation officers found themselves hard at work alongside highway police this past weekend as they dealt with a rash of bear deaths that has already eclipsed last year's total.
As many as four bear deaths were reported on the Sea to Sky Highway this past weekend, although B.C.'s Conservation Officer Service can only be certain of three of them.
A shotgun is out of unsafe hands, a black bear with a taste for livestock is dead and several recreational are users are wiser after a step up in conservation officer patrols over the May long weekend.
Conservation officers from the Ministry of Environment, teamed up with the Ministry of Forests and Range, the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts and the RCMP to ensure visitors and residents were complying to rules while enjoying recreation sites and using forest service roads.
Funding for the Kimberley Bear Aware program just came through this week and the first few days on the job have not been what Shaunna McInnis would have hoped.
McInnis is returning to the Bear Aware program she first worked for in 2005 and 2006.
Her summer got off to a busy start with a bear entering a home in Lois Creek on Monday and then three bears - a mother and two cubs - being put down in the same area on Wednesday morning.
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