Get Bear Smart Society

Editors Note: Articles on this website are intended to make users aware of news related to bears. We do not necessarily agree with the content that is published.

CREDIT: Michael Allen file photo - for The Province
A Whistler agency wants to give a birth-control injection to Jeanie, the resort's best-known black bear.

Bear birth control proposed for Jeanie
Garbage and human behaviour still the primary issues
By Clare Ogilvie, Pique Newsmagazine, May 1, 2008

Everybody in Whistler knows Jeanie.

The large dark brown bear with the tan V on her chest and the many cubs she has born are followed like a soap opera in the columns of the local papers.

And the teenage bear has even starred on the silver screen when the BBC used her for their documentary In the Company of Bears.

Perhaps that is why an idea under discussion by the Get Bear Smart Society of Whistler to put Jeanie on birth control is raising so many eyebrows.

"I don't think the risk is that great and I think it may save her life in the long-term," said the society's executive director, Sylvia Dolson.

The birth control, known as immunosterilization, is given by injection and lasts between one and five years. If administered it would be the first time in Canada it has been used on a wild bear.

Dolson said it is being considered for Jeanie because whenever she has cubs she comes into town in the fall to forage in garbage and gets herself and her cubs into trouble.

The reasons she ventures into the resort are varied. It can be lack of food on the mountain, competition from other bears, and competition for her grazing area from human activity.

Last year during bear season it wasn't unusual for conservation officers to get 20 to 30 calls a day about bears, and they destroyed 13 conflict bears. Numbers that high hadn't been seen since the 1990s.

This is not an end Dolson wants for Jeanie or her cubs, or for any bear for that matter.

"She is only getting into trouble when she has cubs and other times she stays on (Whistler) Mountain, so perhaps this would work to keep her out of conflict," said Dolson.

"This would be an experiment on one individual bear based on a known conflict history of that individual. I want to make clear that it is not something we are thinking of on a population level to control conflict. It is a one-off experiment."

Dolson has brought the idea to the B.C. Ministry of the Environment through a bear-working group. Ministry spokeswoman Kate Thompson said: "It is an experimental vaccine and we don't have enough information on it in its use on bears so we wouldn't be able to endorse its use.

"But we are certainly going to be interested to see what develops with the research in other jurisdictions."

But local bear expert Michael Allen who has followed Jeanie - named after his Scottish grandmother - since he came to Whistler 15 years ago is fiercely opposed to the idea of giving her birth control and sees it as a "cop-out" by the municipality so it doesn't have to deal with the issue of garbage.

"We are not dealing with the root of the problem, garbage, and I am losing patience with the system," said Allen who has been studying black bears for 23 years.

"There is no way I will ever support manipulating bear behaviours. We fully know what the problem is and we are knowingly not addressing it.

"Are we saying, 'Welcome to Whistler where we manipulate our bears so they are not a problem.' That is ridiculous."

Allen believes Whistler owes it to Jeanie to come up with another solution to manage her behaviour. After all, said Allen, she has been showing the community for 14 years what expansion on the mountain - a bigger mountain bike park and new Olympic runs - and growth in the valley bottom is doing to bears.

"Jeanie is an incredible source of information about how a mother bear lives in a dynamic landscape with people," said Allen, adding that she has had nine cubs from five litters.

"She is showing us how she had changed throughout the years in response to us changing her environment, so to start changing her biology is almost criminal."

Dolson agrees that the municipality needs to do more to address its management of garbage. The society is auditing private garbage disposal in town and conducting a landscape audit with a view to getting rid of any plants that might attract bears down into the valley. Businesses or strata's not disposing of garbage securely are being reported on and followed up on said Dolson.

"The garbage is the number one problem without any doubt whatsoever," she said.

"We allow that it is very difficult to change people's behaviour and that no matter how hard we try there will always be some amount of garbage or some other attractants available to bears."

Through the bear working group the society is working with the municipality on the garbage issue.

The bottom line is if Whistler wants to start trying to address garbage in the neighbourhoods more money must be spent. That's a challenging issue for a council in a cash crunch.

Dolson would like to see a portable garbage container move on a schedule from neighbourhood to neighbourhood as a pilot project this summer and fall to see if that can impact the number of bear problems in subdivisions.

But while Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed said council takes the bear issue very seriously local government cannot take responsibility for everyone's behaviour.

"We have a bear-proof collection system but it is all of the activity that happens outside of the system that is a failure and that really lands on the shoulders of personal behaviour," he said.

"And I don't know that we can ever 100 per cent eliminate that because people are going to eat food that bears like, they are going to leave doors open in the summer, and they are going to barbecue.

"Bears are very, very clever - that much we know…"

WHAT DO YOU THINK? E-mail edit@piquenewsmagazine.com. Please include your name and address. Or join Friends of Jeanie on Facebook and participate in the discussions boards.

Alberta suspends grizzly hunt for fourth year while awaiting survey results
CP, April 27, 2008

CALGARY — Alberta will continue to suspend its controversial spring grizzly bear hunt into 2009 amid growing evidence that numbers of the iconic carnivore are significantly lower than earlier estimates.

But Sustainable Resource Development Minister Ted Morton won't order a status review of the grizzly - which could see the bear listed as a threatened or endangered species - until a five-year official count is completed next year.

"We'll keep the moratorium in place until we get the numbers in," Morton told The Canadian Press in an interview.

An average of 14 Alberta grizzlies were "harvested" yearly until the province halted the hunt for an initial three-year period in 2006 in order to get a handle on how many of the bears still prowled its forests.

Not only is 2008 the last scheduled year of the hunting ban, it is also the final year of a half-decade-long scientific survey that uses DNA from hair samples to count the province's bears in five different geographical regions.

And until the entire count is completed, Morton said he would not change the way Alberta classifies and treats its bears, despite being "sympathetic" to their plight.

"I think the responsible approach is to wait for the research to establish the approximate grizzly bear population before implementing new policy," said Morton.

Before the survey, it was generally believed that Alberta had somewhere between 700 and 1,000 grizzlies.

"Obviously, it seems pretty clear that they'll be lower than some of the guesstimates that had been made earlier," Morton conceded.

The numbers from last year's count, which focused on Alberta's southern tip along the Montana border, are due to be made public within weeks. And this summer's count will focus on bears in the remote northwestern forests.

Gord Stenhouse, chairman of Alberta's grizzly bear recovery team and head of the DNA census, speculated that only about 500 grizzlies remain in the province "and maybe less."

"The big message is that certainly there's far fewer bears that have been found and counted in the province of Alberta than what many people expected."

Such dwindling numbers would qualify the Alberta grizzly to be reclassified from its current title as a species "that may be at risk" to "threatened" and perhaps even "endangered" according to international standards.

But Stenhouse also said that ecosystems like Yellowstone National Park in the northwestern United States has proven that bear populations can recover "with the appropriate help."

Earlier this month and after six years of work, Alberta released the final draft of its grizzly bear recovery plan.

Amoung the 78-page document's numerous recommendations are to set specific standards for core grizzly habitats and to strictly limit motorized access on oilpatch and logging roads.

And while the grizzly recovery plan didn't receive any new funding in this week's Alberta budget, Morton said core bear habitat protection will be included in his upcoming land use framework.

The minister also suggests that "some progress" has been made in reducing the known human-caused grizzly mortalities in Alberta from 35 in 2003 to just nine last year.

Louisa Willcox, director of the U.S.-based National Resources Defense Council's wild bears project, said the need is "critical" for Alberta to implement a grizzly recovery plan.

"I think in Alberta we know enough to know that there's a real dire situation with the potential of a declining population and pretty low numbers in a highly fragmented ecosystem."

Willcox said a yearly grizzly bear hunt easily becomes a "red-herring issue" when the big-ticket items surrounding care habitat protection and road density limitations are not addressed.

With likely fewer grizzlies in the entire province than within the Yellowstone ecosystem, Alberta must somehow find ways to keep its sparse bear population connected to promote cross-breeding.

"And for that to happen, you need binding standards and there are no binding standards in this recovery plan," she said.

While other at-risk species like wolves have been successfully re-introduced to the northern states from Canada, bears are much slower at reproducing and therefore take a longer time to rebuild a decimated population.

Recent studies have also shown that Canadian grizzlies are even slower to reproduce because of the harsh habitat conditions, with bears not even becoming sexually mature until seven years-old.

U.S. hunters targeting polar bears while they can
Looming import ban threatens to kill lucrative, but controversial, tradition of chasing trophies in the Arctic with Inuit guidance
KATHERINE O'NEILL, Globe and Mail, April 26, 2008

RESOLUTE BAY, NUNAVUT -- The rules of engagement are simple: The trophy must be male and at least 2.4 metres tall.

And since March, big-game hunters, mainly Americans, clad head to toe in caribou-skin outfits and riding dogsleds, have been on the hunt in Canada's Arctic for one of the most controversial animals on the planet: polar bears.

In this male-dominated, high-priced world, where Inuit-guided hunts can run more than $40,000 (U.S.), bigger is better, right down to the animal's baculum, or penis bone.

But this year, the stakes to bag the iconic predator before the annual season ends next month are at an all-time high because these hunters are also being hunted.

Amid concerns that climate change is threatening Arctic sea ice - the polar bears' main habitat - a U.S. government agency is considering listing the bears as a threatened species under its Endangered Species Act. The decision, which was originally to be announced on Jan. 9, is imminent, according to a government spokesperson.

If the recommendation is adopted, it would likely lead to a ban on the importation of polar bear trophies to the United States.

Without the trophies, hunters from the United States will largely stay home, killing off a lucrative sports-hunting industry that, over the years, has pumped millions of dollars into such struggling Arctic communities as Resolute Bay. Canada is the only country where sport hunting for polar bears is still legal.

Some U.S. hunters were so afraid they wouldn't be able to export their pelt if a decision was made this spring that they cancelled their trips. Many lost deposits as high as $5,000.

But because of waiting lists stretching into 2011, outfitters were able to fill those spots.

"All of the hunters who have been around for years and years told me that if I wanted one, I got to get in now," said Allyn Ladd, 33, a bow hunter and unemployed dentist from Alaska, during an interview at Resolute Bay's co-op hotel.

He's concerned that even if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decides against listing the massive animal as threatened, it's only a matter of time before the hunt is shut down for good by either the federal or territorial governments.

Located 600 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, Resolute Bay, a mainly Inuit community of 250, is the farthest north in Canada that commercial airlines fly. Passengers are greeted in the tiny airport's lobby by a stuffed polar bear that was shot by Nathaniel Kattuk, a local Inuk outfitter.

Like many other hunters who made the trek north of the 60th parallel, Mr. Ladd has dreamed of killing a polar bear since childhood. "As a kid you have dreams," the Arkansas native said in a slow accent. "One thing I've made a point in my life is to chase dreams."

On Day 2 of his hunt this month, Mr. Ladd shot a 9-foot-6 polar bear from about 30 metres. "I was trying to get as close as I could, just to get better video," he said.

By law, sports hunters have to be accompanied by an Inuit guide. The guide, who can tell the size of a bear by the width of its pawprint, helps track them down on the sea ice. As daylight fades, the bears become easier to locate because their white fur appears almost brown due to the shadows. Once a bear has been "glassed" - hunter-speak for spotted - the sled dogs are released to surround and distract the animal so the hunter can get closer to take the perfect shot.

Most aim for the lungs. By the hunter's side is the guide, holding a rifle just in case their shot is off. The animal is then skinned, with the meat turned over to the local community.
Some hunters do it for the glory, with a few paying for camera crews to shoot the feat and the animal's final seconds.

Some are here for the thrill of the kill. "It's a super adrenalin rush. It's incredible," said Mark Beeler, a 49-year-old bow hunter from Milwaukee, Wis. "A polar bear is almost mysterious. Before this, I'd only ever seen a polar bear at the zoo."

Others are trying to complete a hunting hit list. There are several, including the North American Grand Slam (hunters must bag 28 big-game animals from across the continent) and the prestigious Safari Club International 29 - a list of 29 North American predators and ungulate animals.

While the future of the polar bear is a hot topic in the United States, it's also fiercely debated in Canada, with the predator becoming symbolic of animal rights and climate change.

Scientists and Inuit disagree over the health of polar bear populations and whether the loss of sea ice is contributing to their demise. Canada is home to two-thirds of the world's 22,000-25,000 polar bears. This month, the World Wildlife Fund warned that some of Canada's polar bear populations could be wiped out by 2050 because of declining sea ice and overhunting.

Caught in the middle are people like Mr. Kattuk, who owns Nanuk Outfitting Ltd. with his wife Martha in Resolute Bay.

"I hope they still come," the 55-year-old Inuk said when asked whether hunters from the United States will still hire him if they can't bring their pelts home.

Outside the kitchen window of his small, bright blue home, a spring snowstorm rages. The soft-spoken father of four, who employs five local guides, said the Nunavut government and local hunters and trappers organizations are equally concerned about polar -bear conservation, and that the kill would happen - with or without the sport hunters.

"If there are too many of them, there will be problems," he said. "If there are too few, there will be problems."

By the numbers:
22,000-25,000 - Approximate number of the world's polar bears.
16,000 - Approximate number of polar bears in Canada.
13 - Polar bear populations in Canada, 12 of which are in Nunavut.
468 - Number of polar bears allowed to be killed in Nunavut in 2007-08

Sources: Nunavut government, Northwest Territories government, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Canadian government

SOLO: The bear, which was moved from near Ely to Michigan during hibernation, was discovered dead. Two cubs moved with it are in good condition. [FILE/NEWS TRIBUNE]

Solo the bear dies in hibernation
John Myers Duluth News Tribune, April 25, 2008

Solo the one-eared-bear, which was disturbed from hibernation near Ely in December and moved to Michigan because she was considered a threat to people, has died.

The 4-year-old bear did not wake up from hibernation and was discovered dead at Oswald’s Bear Ranch near Newberry in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Scott Pengilly, spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said it’s unclear why the bear died; wildlife officials believed the animal was in good health when she was moved and allowed to go back to sleep in December at her new home.

Two cubs moved with Solo are in good health and, as yearlings, are able to survive on their own at the wildlife sanctuary, Pengilly told the News Tribune. It’s not clear if there will be any additional investigation into why Solo perished, he said.

Independent bear researcher Lynn Rogers in Ely, who had befriended Solo and placed a radio transmitter on the bear, first learned of the death Wednesday when he called the bear ranch for an update.

“Solo has a large following, and we had inquiries daily about her. When we called [Wednesday] to get an update, they said she didn’t make it,’’ Rogers said.

Rogers says he blames the death on the traumatic mid-hibernation ordeal the bear endured in December, saying sedation, trauma from capture and separation from her cubs may have been to blame. Rogers, chairman of the North American Bear Center in Ely, is conducting research on humans feeding bears near Ely to see if intentional feeding reduces nuisance bear complaints.

Solo was hibernating under a seasonal cabin in Eagles Nest Township and had been marked for death by the DNR because she had reportedly threatened some people in the area earlier last year.

The word of Solo’s impending demise struck a chord with bear-lovers. One Hermantown woman offered $1,000 to the cabin’s owner to let the bear family sleep out the winter. There was even talk of bear-lovers buying the cabin so the bear could stay.

The bear had become somewhat famous as a subject of Rogers’ research. The bear’s name came from the fact she had only one ear after losing the other one in a battle with another bear.
In December, Gov. Tim Pawlenty weighed in, commuting the bear’s death sentence and ordering the DNR to move the bear.

DNR officials, with voluntary assistance from staff members of the Forest Lake, Minn.-based Wildlife Science Center, captured Solo and her two cubs, loaded them on a truck and took them 500 miles to the bear ranch.

The DNR doesn’t usually move bears but relies on landowners to remove food sources such as birdseed or dog food. DNR wildlife officials say relocated bears in the wild often are killed by rival bears or struck by vehicles while trying to find their way home. Problem bears usually are shot.

The bear ranch was seen as a compromise, DNR officials said at the time.

Lynn Rogers’ research: DNR shouldn’t use exaggerations to deny permit
Timber Jay, May 03, 2008

Lynn Rogers’ research: DNR shouldn’t use exaggerations to deny permit for groundbreaking researcher

The Department of Natural Resources shouldn’t use exaggerated concerns over public safety as an excuse to end decades of path-breaking research on black bears in northeastern Minnesota.
As we report this week, the DNR has threatened to terminate the research permit of Dr. Lynn Rogers as of June 30, unless a panel of experts the agency plans to convene finds that Rogers’ research poses no threat to the public.

Sadly, top DNR officials have weighed in prematurely on that issue. In a Jan. 31 letter to Rogers, Fish and Wildlife Division Director Dave Schad makes clear he’s found Rogers guilty even before the expert panel has been convened. Writes Schad: “your actions and recommendations are creating potential for public safety problems as well as jeopardizing the safety of the bears themselves.”

Sounds like case closed, which leads us to wonder if the expert panel is being formed to provide an objective assessment or simply political cover for a decision that DNR officials almost certainly know will be unpopular with the public.

The DNR has tangled with Rogers in the past and has regularly come out on the losing end of public opinion, often with good reason. Just as the agency shouldn’t play favorites in the decisions it makes in other contexts, neither can it allow personal animosities or professional rivalries to factor into decisions on who can and who can not conduct scientific research in Minnesota.

Rogers is clearly qualified to do the research that has occupied his professional life for more than 40 years. No one in the DNR can dispute that. His groundbreaking approach, which allows him to work at close proximity to wild bears, has without question greatly expanded our scientific understanding of bear behavior. His work has brought substantial public attention to bear conservation issues as well as to our region.

That public attention has made Rogers’ research a positive thing for bears, and for our area’s tourist economy. Rogers’ was instrumental in development of the North American Bear Center (which is expected to attract 50,000 visitors to the area this year) and his research forms the basis of the center’s public outreach materials. Rogers’ work has been subject of major documentaries in the past, and a new project by the BBC, which is being filmed in the Ely area over the next several months, will be broadcast to over 150 million people worldwide as part of the BBC’s award-winning Planet Earth series.

Given Rogers’ credentials and popularity with the public at large, it makes neither scientific, political, nor economic sense to put an untimely end to his work.

The DNR’s concerns over public safety are overblown. The truth is, the agency has no data whatsoever that suggests, much less proves, that Rogers’ research is responsible for any nuisance activities or bear habituation in Eagles Nest Township, where his work is based.

Rogers located his studies in the Eagles Nest area because residents in the township had been feeding bears there for years and Rogers was interested to determine whether such feeding made a difference in bear behavior. The DNR claims that Rogers’ is habituating bears, but many of the township’s bear were habituated to humans long before Rogers began his research there about ten years ago.

Rogers was particularly interested to learn whether the “diversionary” feeding of bears in the township could be a method of reducing nuisance activity by bears— and his work suggests that it just might be. Such a finding, of course, would be directly at odds with official DNR policy on the subject, which doesn’t help Rogers’ standing with the agency.

But that shouldn’t matter. The DNR is charged with issuing permits for wildlife research, but it shouldn’t abuse that authority by denying permits to qualified scientists simply because they find their hypotheses inconvenient. Science needs to be an open process— not one constrained by conventional wisdom or battles over turf.

The DNR should quit persecuting Rogers and let him study his bears in peace.