Urban Ranger, I think what Telemark meant is not that it’s a clear argument for killing the bears, it’s a clear argument for not feeding them. If a bear starts eating from people’s trash cans, or if people start feeding it directly, then it may loose its aversion toward humans and may start associating them with food. When that happens, its encounters with humans will become more frequent, and the chances that one of those encounters will turn nasty (and therefore necessitate its being killed) rise dramatically.
The bear isn’t killed because it may harm someone, it’s killed because it did harm someone. The warning is for people to not feed the bears, because it may then lead to the bears harming someone later.
Of course, I could be wrong. Telemark, could you clear this up?
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Bears that continually eat out of trashcans, or invade picnic areas looking for food are killed. Why? Because they teach their offspring and often other bears, that humans are where the easy food is. If you have all the bears in a given area all of a sudden trying to get food from humans, someone will get hurt. It’s not a matter of will they get hurt it’s a matter of when. They do try relocating the bears first, hoping this behavior isn’t ingrained yet, but too often that fails and the bears manage to find there way back to places humans congregate and the cycle starts all over again.
Others have covered it, but basically once a bear has lost its fear of humans and/or associated humans with food, there will be future encounters and eventually one of those encounters will involve a human being hurt. It is generally agreed that if an animal will hurt humans, it must be removed or killed. That’s a value judgement that our society has made. Once a bear loses its fear of humans, this is almost inevitable.
In Yosemite, humans are fined for leaving food out or even in their cars. The bears have figured out what food (and coolers) look like and will break into cars to get it. They are taking the approach there that they can regulate the humans and save the bears. Still, when a bear/human attack occurs it is likely that the bear will reluctantly be killed.
When humans and wild animals interact, humans have a tendency to come out on top in the long run. Only by changing human behavior can we hope to save the animals.
Must I point out that the usual diet of a normal black bear does not include human infants? Is there some one of you who can suggest a therapy we can apply to a bear who munches munchkins that will absolutely and surely guarantee that said bear will stick to berries and roots and such?
Arguments about human encroachment and habitat infringement are not relevant here, people. 99.9999% of black bears will run at full speed away from any encounter with humans. The remaining few – no matter how “flawed” their judgment, no matter how “driven” they are by a lack of food, water, etc., no matter how “encouraged” they are by previous successes at raiding human trash – must be destroyed. The most efficient method of destruction yet devised for a renegade bear is a small dose of lead administered at supersonic velocity.
Keeve, you’re right! It’s not about revenge at all. Rather, it’s about eliminating a proven source of murderous capability and intent. The bear kills, the bear dies, period. It really is just that simple.
Telemark, what are you talking about? What aspect of the infant’s mother’s behavior was not within your approval? Are you saying that the aggregate of human behavior with relation to this particular bear was what caused it to snatch a baby from a stroller for its lunch? Please explain what aspect of my behavior I’m supposed to change to insure that a bear doesn’t eat my offspring.
The news here said they killed the bear to check for rabies. Why? Dunno since the child was already dead, but perhaps they killed the bear while the baby was still alive…
If I were to walk into a bear den and take the smallest bear in my teeth and wrip it apart, my bet would be that the other bears there would attack and try to kill me.
Humans are animals like bears, just more intelligent leaving them more creative ways to kill - ie. 9/11.
TBone2, the bear had already lost its fear of humans. Someone somewhere had done that, either by leaving food out, feeding the bear, etc. I was in no way blaming the mother of the child. But the fact is that normally, bears fear humans. I’ve had several encouters with bears, and in all but one case the bears ran away on first contact. The one exception was a bear that had learned to associate hikers with food.
If you have a bear behaving in a very unusual manner, it pays to find out what caused that behavior. One possibilty was that the bear had rabies, in which case other bears might have rabies. If you are going to kill the bear (and after the bear killed a baby this was a foregone conclusion) you should definately do a necropsy to see if there was some possible medical reason.
There is the idea of a “carrying capacity”, how many and what types of encounters people are willing to accept from animals. If you occasionally see a moose at the edge of the road, people are thrilled. If people start dying from car/moose collisions, you’ll end up with a moose hunting season.
Bears are big and dangerous. I’ve been in close, unprotected proximity with black bears on a couple of occasions and I found it to be quite the humbling experience. They have a couple hundred pounds on you, bigger teeth and claws, and they can outrun you. If one of them wanted to take you out there’s not much that you could do to prevent a rather grizzly death. Luckily they’re more afraid of us than we are of them, and if you make yourself known and make a lot of noise they’ll run away. I was told on a backpacking trek that the best thing to do if a black bear was in the vicinity is to start whistling a song and not threaten them, they’ll just run away.
I’m all for killing a beast with a taste for humans, we’re easy prey and we probably taste good. Black bears are everywhere in northern America and the only thing that saves them is that they run away from humans. If you were ever out in the forests of Russia at night and being tracked by a pack of wolves you’d understand why we don’t see many of them around in the USA anymore, they were too dangerous for their own good.
What is the alternative, let the bears have their habitat and we all just not buy homes near woods?
It’s been said that all mammal babies exude an extra large amount of potassium, I think it was, and that all mammal adults recognize another mammal’s “infant” status. This factor is used in the explanation that mammals suddenly get very rough with children who get out of line, as they reach a certain point of maturity, and the potassium levels drop. Young animals are exempt from “normal” punishment. This is why, for example, a young baby can wreak havoc on an adult cat or dog, and have it shrugged off. So the theory goes.
Although it probably wasn’t a part of the thinking in dealing with the adult bear, it would fit in with the theory: here’s an adult mammal that’s willing to prey on the young of another mammal. Sentence: death.
Ok, in this case I agree. The bear should have been put down. The fact that it walked right into human territory and took a baby says something.
However, a week or so ago I saw a little educational show about trying to adapt some orphan bears into the wild. There was a clip of a bear eating garbage from a trash can. The officer shot it dead. My instant thought was WTF?!?! Would It be to hard to tranq the bear and release it 50km from civilization? If it come back just tranq it again and send it back to the wild. Eventually its got to learn that Humans=Long nap and waking up in the middle of a forest, then stop coming back. They’re smart enough to figure that out aren’t they? Its better than killing them isn’t it?
I know nothing about bears, but I fail to understand why humans = food+ a long nap would be a detterent…
Also, that would imply there would be someone to put them to sleep each time they would come to eat from the garbage can, or else it would be : humans = always food and very occasionnally a long nap.
Forced evolution. Oh sure, maybe not today, maybe not tommorow. But someday, Elsie, those bears will slink away like a wipped doggie just when they smell a human.
They do tranq and relocate bears after a first, second, third offence of eating garbage. But if a bear is habituated to looking for human food, experience shows that it’s very, very hard to change the bear’s behaviour. Eventually, killing the bear is the only option. Besides, in some areas there is no “remote” place to drop off a bear.
I talked to one ranger somewhere out west, forget which park, who said that after they tranq’ed the bears and dropped them off in the backcountry, it would be a race to see who got back to the campground first. Those bears got shot pretty soon.
