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All Non-lethal bear management Articles
VANCOUVER - The David Suzuki Foundation wants the B.C. government to set up what it calls bear parks, so grizzlies can roam free from the threat of human activity, including hunting.
Spokesman Faisal Moola says government records suggest more than 300 grizzly bears were killed in B.C. by hunters last year, but the real toll could be double that because of illegal poaching.
Or is it fear ruling Alberta’s wildlife rehabilitation program?
For a party that pledges allegiance to the dictum of “small government,” the Alberta Tories sure seem inclined to unnecessarily meddle in the lives of Albertans who have committed to give injured and infirm wildlife a second chance at life. Last summer, approved facility plans and permits in hand, wildlife rehabilitators across the province received in the mail a surprise from Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD): An insidious “appendix” that contradicts their current permits and curtails, in a single stroke, the types of animals rehabbers routinely care for and release into the wild.
EDMONTON - The provincial government is forbidding wildlife rehabilitation groups from taking in and treating more than 20 species of animals — including cougars, bears and moose — out of concern for human safety.
Those who rehabilitate animals say this is misguided thinking that forces them to act against their mission and puts the public in more danger.
The new rules are still a work in progress, but Alberta Sustainable Resource Development hopes to have overall standards finalized this year, said spokesman Darcy Whiteside.
Have you helped kill a black bear? Have you contributed to its forced relocation, a stressful move usually, into another bear's territory?
Sometimes I think we should relocate a few of the folks who contribute to bears taking to our streets instead of staying in the backcountry.
If you leave pet food outside, fail to rake up birdseed on the ground, leave birdseed in a bear-reachable feeder overnight or put fish skin and bones in a garbage can, you may be visited by raccoons or bears.
Prince George, B.C. - The City of Prince George has three steps to complete before it can be certified as a "Bear Smart" community.
Bears are not uncommon sites in Prince George, in fact, last year, Conservation Officers received 1925 calls about bears in the community and attended 310. Of that number, 86 black bears and one grizzly were destroyed, and one black bear was relocated.
They may look cute and cuddly, but don't expect them to walk up to greet you.
That's the way it should be, Northern Lights Wildlife Shelter operator Angelika Langen said, looking into the enclosure where Bella Coola natives Lori and Dean are, along with their grizzly cousins Jason and Drew.
Theirs is a sad story, beginning with the tragic loss of their mother, quickly followed by the loss of their sister. Once the twins were two-thirds of a set of triplets, who were learning the tricks of the wild from their mother.
TRUCKEE — The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has successfully returned two California black bear yearlings to a remote wilderness near Truckee. Both female cubs were orphaned last summer.
One cub was illegally dumped last June on the front porch of Ann Bryant, executive director of the BEAR League. Weighing only 12 pounds, the cub was emaciated and starving. The other cub was reported by a citizen who kept seeing it alone and bawling near Markleeville last August. A DFG investigation determined the bear was an orphan. “It weighed about 30 pounds and was unusually lethargic for a cub,” said Cristen Langner, DFG's bear biologist in the Tahoe Basin.
To assess the likelihood that different sex and age classes of bears that use landfills would display problem behaviour following landfill closure, we conducted the McLeod Lake Landfill Grizzly Bear Behaviour Project over a 3-year period: 2000 (pre-landfill closure), 2001 and 2002 (post-landfill closure). Our study was designed to identify attributes or behaviours that may be used to predict which bears are more likely to seek out alternate human-food sources after a landfill closes, thus becoming problem bears and posing a threat to humans. If we are able to predict whether certain classes of bears are more likely to become problems than others, this knowledge could be applied during subsequent landfill closures where those bears with an
increased likelihood of posing a threat to human safety would be destroyed, while the remaining
bears would be allowed to live.
The author tested the efficacy of aversive conditioning (AC) and conditioned taste aversion (CTA) on American black bears (Ursus americanus) in Whistler, British Columbia. The study used AC (rubber bullets fired from a shotgun and marbles fired from a sling shot) in an attempt to increase bear wariness toward humans and decrease the time bears spend in human developments. Thiabendazole, an emetic with low toxicity, was used to teach bears to associate illness with specific attractants that cause human-bear conflict.
CHEYENNE -- Portable electric fences as night pens for domestic sheep in the Upper Green River region of the Wind River Mountains last summer protected sheep and sheepherders from predatory animals, according to a rancher.
Speaking before the Wyoming Animal Damage Management Board last week in Cheyenne, rancher Mary Thoman also said the pens reduced the number of grizzly bears removed from the area because of conflict.
B.C.'s three major wildlife rehabilitation centres are inundated with skinny bear cubs struggling to survive without their mothers.
The problem of malnourished cubs surfaced recently at the North Island Wildlife Centre in Errington, where seven black bear cubs are in care and another two were euthanized. Usually the centre cares for one or two cubs a year.
Underweight bear cubs from all over the Island are being taken to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre in greater numbers than ever before.
Six cubs are being cared for at the centre in Errington. Another two were put down over the past week because they were too ill to survive.
Top 10 Quirky bear happenings for 2010: A year in review
From fending off a black bear with a zucchini to amazing photos of a grizzly chasing a fire charred bison, 2010 has been a year of quirky bear happenings, including a live cam set up to view Lily the bear giving birth to Hope in Ely, Minnesota.
A family in B.C.'s Okanagan is criticizing the provincial conservation service because of how officers responded when they reported a family of black bears on their property.
The Borden family called conservation officers on Saturday when a severely underweight mother bear led her two cubs onto their Falkland property.
"She clearly needed some help, as well as the cubs. She should be hibernating at this time of year, and so we figured there was something wrong and she needed attention," Stephen Borden told CTV New
The authors believe that communication within and among agency personnel in the United States and Canada about the successes and failures of their human-bear (Ursidae) management programs will increase the effectiveness of these programs and of bear research. To communicate more effectively, they suggest agencies clearly define terms and concepts used in human-bear management and use them in a consistent manner. They constructed a human-bear management lexicon of terms and concepts using a modified Delphi method to provide a resource that facilitates more effective communication among human-bear management agencies.
"Educating bears is easier than educating people," said world-renowned wildlife officer Steve Searles when he met a few months ago with Wildhaven Ranch bear handler Nancy Anderson. Anderson traveled to Mammoth Mountain to meet with Searles.
The famous wildlife officer-known as the "Bear Whisperer"-is a former hunter who began working with the Mammoth Police Department in 1996. Since then his approach to working with animals has changed completely. He no longer hunts animals; he works toward protecting them and guarding their lives by teaching people how to get along with bears.
A crowd of some 60 people watched on Wednesday (Nov. 17) watched as conservation officers, police and fire crews tranquilized and relocated a bear from a tree behind the B.C. Liquor Store in Marketplace.
It wasn't the first time this year that such action was necessary in that location. A few weeks back, a similar incident occurred - with a similar-sized crowd on hand to watch. Clearly, Whistler residents and resort guests have a keen interest in the local bear population, and given the chance, most of us would change our daily routines to ensure their protection.
Three grizzly cubs caught in a trap in Bella Coola were given a stay of execution Tuesday after the province rescinded a kill order on the bears.
Ian McAllister, conservation director with Pacific Wild, said the provincial government had planned to kill the cubs after their mother charged a conservation officer and was shot.
But the decision was reversed Tuesday morning. The cubs will now be relocated to a rehabilitation centre in Smithers.
A black bear relocated from Merritt to the Pennask Lake area by conservation officers in June has been killed.
The bear was hunted legally during open season in the Kelowna area on Oct. 14., according to local B.C. Conservation Officer Jeff Hanratty.
“It’s going to be on somebody’s wall somewhere,” said Hanratty in an interview with the Merritt News
......And so it was that on Thursday, October 14, a black bear wandered into Whistler. Oops. It didn’t take the hungry bruin long to realize that this was probably not a good idea, and so he took what is, for a bear, appropriate action. He climbed a tree. There’s nothing like being up a tree to give a bear better time to mull things over, to plan, to stay out of trouble, and perhaps to await darkness when it is easier to move unnoticed by those bipedal creatures who always seem so excitable. Trouble was, the tree was located right in town, between the Marketplace and Whistler’s Health Care Centre. The bear was, in short, noticed......
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