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All Education Articles
Don’t underestimate the power of your story. And remember…. the public responds to individuals; they have trouble relating to populations. Even broad and generic terms are difficult to relate to. It’s better to promote your cause through the life and challenges of one bear, who has a name, a family, friends, alliances, rivals and things to do each day. Because bears are actually not that unlike us. Find the similarities and invite people to become a part of their lives.
With grizzly bears and people coming closer and closer to one another in the front country of Grand Teton National Park, officials have refined their guidelines as to how close people can be to wildlife.
The need for the revisions arose as more and more visitors took to the roofs of their vehicles to photograph bears and, in at least two instances, the bears took exception and charged the vehicles, according to park officials.
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.
Strawberry Point, a popular camping area north of Pemberton, will remain closed for the long weekend if a troublesome black bear has not been captured or moved on in time, conservation officers said this week.
“We’ve had a bear there that’s been extremely aggressive and approached campers for food,” Sgt. Chris Doyle of the Conservation Officer Service, said Wednesday (July 27). “It’s totally lost its fear of people and has received food rewards from campsites and has repeatedly approached people for food and tried to chase people out of their sites in order to look for food.
CTV Ottawa News' Leanne interviews, Martyn Obbart, Steve Herrero and Steven Amstrup at the International Bear Association Conference. Watch three segments here.
VANCOUVER -- Human-bear conflicts are down so far this year, government statistics show, despite recent headlines that might lead you to believe otherwise.
Over the last three weeks a series of incidents in B.C. has left one Lillooet-area woman dead from a black bear attack, one man seriously injured after being attacked by a grizzly bear at Rivers Inlet, a jogger attacked by a black bear near Mount Seymour and one North Vancouver woman terrified after a black bear attacked her dog and tried to force its way into her home.
The provincial government is warning people not to stop to view black bears after an attack in Labrador.
A woman driving between Churchill Falls and Happy Valley-Goose Bay was bitten, after a black bear got its head into her vehicle through an open window.
The first thing to know about bears is they are unpredictable. There is no sure way to survive a bear attack, whether it's a grizzly or a black bear, although the lighter-coloured, humped grizzly is bigger and generally more aggressive.
The safest option, of course, is avoiding an attack altogether. Making noise when you're hiking in the wilderness is a good start, whether you talk loudly, clap your hands or call out, giving a bear you haven't yet seen a chance to retreat
The terrible spring weather has at least made the bears happy.
While humans may complain about the delayed summer, B.C. right now has a healthy bear population - with the wet and cool spring considered to be one of the prime reasons.
The unseasonable spring has created an ideal habitat for both the black bears and the grizzlies around the province, points out bear expert Jacques Drisdelle.
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?
It has been a busy week or so for black bear activity and other wildlife in Whistler, with conservation officers making the decision to kill the first bear of the season because it entered a home in Alta Vista. Other recent bear-human encounters included two other home invasions, a bear raiding golf bags at a local course and a cub hit and killed by a vehicle on Highway 99.
A cougar sighting was also reported in Spring Creek last Wednesday (June 22).
It was a large, adult male black bear that conservation officers trapped and shot last Wednesday after it entered an Alta Vista home while two people were inside. The previous day (June 21), the bear went “deep into the house and into the kitchen” where it found food, said Chris Doyle, conservation officer.
CHEYENNE - A grizzly bear clan famous for its frequent roadside appearances in Grand Teton National Park is keeping park rangers especially busy this summer tending to tourist critter jams.
The cubs are cute - no question about that - but a female grizzly with cubs happens to be one of the most dangerous animals in North America. And this Grand Teton clan has a history: One attacked a hiker, another was shot and killed by a hunter.
I first observed Jeanie out of the den on May 21 with two black cubs on Whistler Mountain.
The twenty-year-old mom then had at least one aggressive encounter with a coyote and two aggressive encounters with large male bears.
Coyotes have been known to sneak up to small spring cubs to kill them for food although I've never seen them be successful. Male bears pose the more serious threat to spring cubs killing them to force the mothers back into the breeding cycle. The last time I saw Jeanie with two cubs was on May 24. On May 26, Sylvia Dolson of the Get Bear Smart Society saw her with only one cub during the Toonie Bike Race in the lower Bike Park. Both mom and cub were treed and appeared agitated.
Wildlife officials are concerned that black bears coming out of hibernation are showing up in alarming numbers along the Sea to Sky Highway near Whistler, B.C.
Part of the problem is clover planted on the roadside when the highway was expanded before the 2010 Olympics. Bear experts say the animals love clover and will brave fast-moving traffic to get it.
May 26, 2011 — Media Coverage: Save a bear
OK. So summer is rolling in slowly and bear sightings on the road are getting more and more common every day. Again, a new wave of tourists is starting to come into town, stopping on their way up to take a closer look at the bears.
First of all, it is dangerous for the other drivers on the road and as we learned in the past, those situations can trigger bear attacks on humans and bears' lives are lost (because of this).
I can picture the Herald online reader comments. "Goodness gracious! Enough with bears, already!"
Indeed, bears have been prominent in the local media of late: reports marking the start of the bear season, a failed legislative attempt at extending the bear hunting season, the $1.95 million judgment awarded to the family of an 11-year old boy killed by a bear in 2007 in Utah and a cub recently killed by a vehicle near Chapman Hill.
A large male grizzly bear was killed on the Trans-Canada Highway early last week just west of Lake Louise.
Hal Morrison, the wildlife-human conflict specialist for Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay, said the bear was hit by a vehicle either late night on May 9 or early morning on May 10 in a tunnel right underneath a new wildlife overpass. They suspect because of the distance the bear was from impact, it was hit by a large transport truck.
Being "bear aware" has been on the minds of many people in recent days, with a reported attack on hikers near Bozeman on Friday and another incident reported near Seeley Lake on Saturday.
Friday's attack on two hikers by a grizzly bear near Big Sky resulted in non-life threatening injuries to the two people.
If you believe Stephen Colbert - and really, who doesn't? - bears are deadly.
"Bears are soulless, godless, rampaging killing machines," the comedian has written. "They are Satan's minions and the TRUE symbol of evil."
He might be surprised, then, by a new study that found that black bears - the most common bears in North America - have killed only 63 people in the United States and Canada over the last 109 years.
Revelstoke Bear Aware Community Coordinator Janette Vickers has been working with Ron Larsen and Jeff Bolingbroke at Parks Canada to create a Google Earth Map to view bear sightings on the Revelstoke Bear Aware website, www.revelstokebearaware.org. The Google Earth Map is an interactive tool for residents to view bear sightings and associated bear attractants in our community. Currently, the map includes reported bear sightings for 2009, 2010 and our first bear sighting of 2011 on April 23rd.
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