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June 28, 2005

The Bear-Human Conflict: Part II

The more I think about the Bear-Human Conflict, the more I think that it's important to understand the frequency at which these events occur.

I remember before I went to Africa for the first time, a friend who had gone told me about the rest areas within the national parks. He said that there were always signs near the bathrooms of lionesses laying above the doors, waiting to eat you on your way in or out. I thought this funny at the time, but I certainly paid attention whenever I left the safety of the car and walked in the open - and I always appreciated any signs saying "Please make sure the door is closed and locked" when entering or leaving a hide or other gated area.

When I mentioned I was considering driving the Alaskan Highway as a roadtrip idea, another friend told me I'd have to bring a shotgun, and leave the car running at rest stops because of the grizzlies that like to eat the unsuspecting stoppers. So I am skeptical as to whether or not this is truly necessary, but I'm likely to lean towards safety - even if it makes me feel slightly stupid in a Parent Trap cougar-stick-whacking kind of way.

But I still want some perspective. How often do bear attacks really occur, and how often are they fatal (or near enough to really suck)? Conversely, how often do humans kill bears? Really, what's the score here?

Let's look at the past century, shall we? Well, it's the only info I could find... Under the USGS's Alaska Science Center - Biological Science Office, a Bear Project has been undertaken to construct a database of Alaska bear-human encounters spanning the 20th century.

By The Numbers
How many human fatalities can be attributed to bears in the past century or so?

The short answer: surprisingly few.

According to the National Park Service's The Museum Gazette, the Grizzly has been responsible for only 14 deaths in the past century - primarily due to being surprised, protecting cubs or a kill. I'm guessing this may be a number for the lower 48 states, given the USGS survey above for Alaska reports about 50 fatal brown bear attacks in the past century.

Let's assume you're going to have similar numbers in Canada, which is likely high, given the relative populations and protection policies.

How many brown bears have been killed in the past century or so?

The answer is unclear, but it's safe to say a lot.

According to the Alaska Fish & Game Department, the number of brown bears killed by hunters averages about 1,604 a year for at least the past five years. This number does not include poaching (which they have a footnote about likely being a larger number than the recorded number), nor do their harvest numbers include federal hunts not requiring licensing - like the death of the grizzly this past week.

In Canada, the grizzly is listed as vulnerable in the western provinces and extirpated in the Prairie provinces. Canada has the grizzly on a special hunting license lottery program, but I could not find any harvest stats on the bears. However, in British Columbia alone (only one of about 4 provinces with grizzlies), over the course of five years, they had to destroy an average of 20 grizzlies a year because they were problem bears - as well as 384 black bears a year for the same reason. Assume similar numbers for the other provinces and Alaskan parks (assuming the lower 48 must use other means like relocation due to Endangered Species Act laws).

Before the grizzly made the Endangered Species list in the lower 48 states, they were hunted to near extinction. According to the High Country News article quoted below, humans eradicated almost 100,000 grizzly bears in the Western U.S. between 1850 and 1920. Ironically, the state flag of California depicts the golden bear - the California grizzly, which has been extinct since 1924.

The history of how the brown bear finally made it onto the Endangered Species listing in the lower 48 states is actually a really good example of why not to feed wild animals. Allowing bears to become conditioned to humans and their garbage can have very drastic and long-reaching effects. As the Canadians say, "a garbage-conditioned bear is a doomed bear".

Most population demographers prescribe 500 bruins [bears] as the lowest starting point for assuring long-term survival.

...

A quarter century ago, bear numbers had plummeted to perhaps fewer than 200, after Yellowstone National Park initiated a bold strategy of closing trash dumps to wean grizzlies from unnatural foods. An estimated 140 bears conditioned to feed on garbage died soon after, prompting alarm within the scientific community that the Yellowstone grizzly population was crashing.

Emergency listing of the bear population under the then-nascent Endangered Species Act brought a heated end to trophy bear hunting on the public and private lands around the park; yet the grizzly was still in trouble in the early 1980s.

More at: High Country News: Grizzly War

Lastly, Wind River Bear Institute has some great info on how cars and trains effect bear populations, primarily in Canada, and how effective translocation and adversive conditioning (traumatizing the bear so it won't come near humans and such) policies can be.

Posted by sorsha at June 28, 2005 1:11 PM