NOTE: This section is geared toward professional
wildlife managers. It is not intended for the general public.
Diversionary feeding can be successfully used to discourage problem
bear behaviour. Ben Kilham (author of Among
the Bears) suggests a plan using the same food the bears are
feeding on in someone's backyard, only delivered to them deep
in the woods in good cover. Given a choice, bears will always
take food at a more secure location.
One of the big reasons for an increase of bear activity in residential areas is a seasonal shortage of natural foods in the nearby woods. Establishing select feeding sites can be effective in these situations, but it's important to have a specific plan, a limited feeding program, and a definite end. Proper sites must be secure: remote, in good cover, and not readily accessible to hunters. A good natural water source should be nearby. If it's done correctly, bears will communicate the whereabouts of relocated food sites in order to share them, making it cost effective to maintain the needed bait sites.
An attempt to feed a specific bear is unlikely to work if there
are other bears in the area. Younger, less dominant bears will
be displaced from the area and may begin getting into trouble
elsewhere - a situation where good intentions have gone awry.
However, a sufficient food supply will prevent dominant bears
from controlling the bait site and disrupting the social hierarchy
in the bear community.
Diversionary Feeding has become a very controversial option,
as managers are afraid to push bear control efforts in the direction
of the problem itself. However, there's nothing that will motivate
a bear more effectively than food. A bear's daily routine is consumed
by the search for food. Often traditional solutions that don't
work are anthropocentric; we understood what they are supposed
to convey, but the bears don't. If we approach the problem from
the bear's point of view, we can use 'food' to effectively manipulate
their behaviour.
Clearly this is only a temporary solution. The only real cure to residential bear problems is for people clean up food or garbage that may attract bears.
From Among the Bears: Raising Orphan Cubs in the Wild, a book written by Ben Kilham and Ed Gray and published by Henry Holt, 2002.
Habitat Enhancement
Enhancing natural habitat in areas surrounding human development
may be a good way to keep bears out of residential areas. This
can be accomplished by thinning heavily wooded areas near natural
travel corridors, allowing the sunlight to penetrate the thick
forest and promote richer undergrowth. Parks, ski hills and golf
courses, by their very design, often provide enhanced habitat
for bears.
Native berry or nut producing trees/shrubs can also be planted,
particularly those that product fruit during the fall when other
food sources have been depleted.
It is also important to remove trees/shrubs in areas where bears
are not welcome.
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Intercept Feeding
Southern Alberta area biologists have
cooperatively confronted grizzly bear attacks on livestock
head on for the past six years. The Spring Grizzly Bear
Intercept Feeding program was founded by Richard Quinlan,
of Pincher Creek. It was initialized in response to grizzly
cattle conflicts.
The bears come down from their habitat
to feed in the spring, which causes a public safety concern
as well as livestock preservation issues. "Grizzly
bears have no natural predators, they are on top of the
food chain," said Carey Bergman, area biologist for
Pincher creek. "Hunting skims off the bears food, so
this is the how they compensate."
The Spring Grizzly Bear Intercept Feeding
program solves the issue of carcass disposal for wildlife
killed on highways while keeping ranchers' livestock safe.
It is designed to keep the bears within a designated territory
after they awake from hibernation in the spring. This is
accomplished by providing the bears with a sufficient food
source within their natural habitat.
"We air lift and drop off the carcasses
to several mapped out private sites and parks," said
John Elias, Fish and Wildlife Conservation Officer. Between
150 and 200 carcasses in total are collected off the highways
and distributed into the mountains. An average of three
animals are roped to a harness that dangles 50 feet from
the helicopter. It's an entire day process that is done
twice every spring, said Elias.
The number of bears removed from these
areas over the past five years has been significantly reduced
to zero since the program started. "Before the grizzly
program started we were moving a bear per year," said
Bergman.
The program's success relies on a lot
of community participation to collect the needed carcasses.
"Volker Stevin, a contract highway maintenance company,
clears most of the animals off the road, and stores them
for us, "said Bergman. Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Officers from all over southern Alberta participate in the
drops.
The program is the only one of its kind
in Canada and was modeled after a similar program in Montana.
By Sarah Anderson, Crows Nest Pass
Observer, March 24, 2003
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Download:
Behavior, wild diets and weight gains of supplementally-fed black
bears in northeastern Minnesota by Susan A. Mansfield (Department
of Environmental Studies, Antioch New England Graduate School,
Keene, New Hampshire) and Lynn L. Rogers (Wildlife Research Institute,
Ely, Minnesota)
This study compares bears receiving supplemental food with those
in a nearby study area where bears were not supplementally fed
(Rogers 1987;Rogers, unpublished data).
This ongoing study explores effects of supplemental feeding on:
• Territoriality and social organization
• Wild foraging patterns
• Preference for natural versus human foods
• Seasonal changes in use of supplemental foods
• Weight gain
• Habituation and reactions to people
• Mortality
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