July 6, 1998 ' Helping garbage bears' by Dean Fosdick, Associate Press Writer published in the Ravalli Republic on Friday June 5, 1998[ Had to kill a couple of bears and the various arms of the grizzly reintroduction organization is trying to sofen the blow by strategically chosen stories. Don't be led astray! Comment by CAG]
Some bears just don't seem to know when they're not wanted. These usually are the garbage bears. Nuisance bears. Bears accustomed to people. Sometimes too accustomed. In Alaska, that can be black bears or their larger cousins, the brown.
CAG Comment
Just as important Some bureaucrats don't know when the public doesn't want grizzly bears reintroduced into the Bitterroot Selway Frank Church Wilderness!
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"Usually, when we look into these things, we can trace it back to careless handling of garbage by people," says Bruce Bartley, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game in Anchorage. "Bears do what bears do. They find things to eat.
"The real problem is not created by bears but by people who store their winter's trash in plastic bags on their decks."
Fish and Game has several choices when that occurs. Wildlife biologists can try to educate people about keeping their dog food and garbage indoors, they can try to relocate the bear, or they can destroy it.
"If you feed wild animals, you kill them," Bartley says. "Nutritionally, or they have to be shot because they lose their fear of people."
CAG Comment
When a bear wanders into an area he does what comes naturally. He looks for food. He is an opportunist and when he finds a good thing-he doesn't move back to harder pickings. That old saw about the bears not wanting to be near civilization is bunk, as you can see from this article.
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"There's no iron-hard prescription, but relocation generally is discouraged," he says. "There are circumstances where biologists can decide what it's best to do. If it's a bear only recently involved in nuisance circumstances, and if you can get it out of there quick, then it shouldn't be a problem.
"Killing a bear is a politically charged situation," Miller says. "Where there's a lot of adverse reaction to killing it, a transfer might be in order. But it's tremendously expensive. Relocation isn't just an expensive option, but it also may run counter to biology. Adult bears have a tremendous homing ability.
"There was this problem bear we had in Cordova," says Herman Griese, with the state Fish and Game office in Palmer. "We moved it 30 miles away to Montague Island. It returned, apparently by crossing the Hinchinbrook Entrance.
"As most people know, that has a tremendous current running through it. It's also a substantial distance (Six miles, or across the entrance from the Gulf of Alaska to Prince William Sound.) For a bear to cross that, it has to be pretty dedicated," Griese says.
Don McKnight, another retired Alaska Fish and Game biologist who lives now in Republic, Wash., says moving predator bears to boost caribou numbers appeared to be a workable option back in the 1970s.
"Up on the North Slope, we'd transplant nuisance (grizzly) bears from the core caribou calving areas and they'd almost always come back," McKnight says. "Some would travel 30 or 40 miles almost overnight.
CAG Comment
Guides and outfitters should read this closely. The grizzly bear reintroduction segment of the USFWS has discovered they can't make the 'great habitat because it is a large block of land (core area) fly'. So they are now saying that grizzly bears have changed their menu. Does this mean that in addition to the wolves and the black bears you are going to be asked to share the elk population with another major predator??? Think about it!
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"Dependent upon how far they were moved, they'd be back in two days, three days, or a week. But that would be enough. The newborn calves would be up on their feet and pretty much out of danger"
Most transfers involve brown bears or grizzlies. But biologists have discovered that black bears get homesick, too.
Doug Larsen, the agencies; Ketchikan area wildlife biologist, was handed a sizable problem four years ago when the community closed its landfill.
"We handled 78 bears. Fifty-eight of those bears we took off the island, Larsen said. "Since then, nine bears died of various causes in the wild. Hunters accounted for some, one was killed in defense of life and property.
"We've had six bears return that we're aware of, or about 10 percent that had some long. open-water swims back. We may see more before it's all over."
Larsen figures 43 bears were successfully relocated in the wild.
"Some bears we've been following with radio collars, and they've set up new home ranges, he says. "We consider them the model bears in terms of having settled into natural areas after being into garbage."
If they do opt for relocation, then biologists must be careful when choosing new areas. They may be moving the problem to a new neighborhood.
"A bear that's a trouble bear will be trouble wherever you put it," says the agency's Bartley. "You try to determine what the problem is and solve it. But often you have to destroy the bear."
CAG Comment
In all this talk about the reintroduction of grizzly bears, let's not forget what this is really all about; IT'S ALL ABOUT POWER! deminishing local control INCREASING FEDERAL CONTROL!
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