February 11, 2005: Misplaced
Anguish
By Ahchie
The
headline read, “Shooting of bears stirs outcry.”
My first thought was that the outcry was probably coming from some misguided
soul with nothing better to do than complain about the killing of any living
thing that is not human, even mosquitoes and cockroaches. Such misplaced anguish
over the death of a bear seemed likely, as bears are generally seen as soft
and cuddly. Even though bears can be very large and dangerous, they are perceived
by bear lovers as gentle giants who are kind and would even take in an abandoned
human baby and raise it as their own without hesitation. Often times these
bear defenders will assign to them characteristics that they wish all people
had, without the corporate greed that they see as the ruination of all civilization.
But the headline also prompted the questioning thought of what would be a good reason for a bear-shooting outcry, and there was that brief bit of hope that this story was not just a sob story about a dead bear. Perhaps the outcry was not from someone who loves animals more than their fellow man. Perhaps the outcry was that there was not enough shooting of bears. Perhaps there was an outcry because the bears were just discarded, as opposed to being eaten.
As it turns out, the outcry was because a man hired hit men to kill a bear that had invaded his Lake Tahoe cabin and caused $100,000 worth of damage. Not realizing there was actually a mother bear and two cubs, the hit men ended up killing all three. Now the cabin owner is receiving death threats and everyone is upset that the lazy, destructive bears were not moved nicely out of the cabin. Even the hit men are upset because they were not allowed to take the bear carcasses.
One of the more interesting aspects of the story is the revelation that the three bears’ gall bladders and claws could be sold for about $20,000. Had the cabin owner known how valuable a bear gall bladder is, he could have gone out into the woods and killed 12 more bears. The resulting bounty from selling gall bladders and claws would have paid for the $100,000 in damage and reduced the swelling population of bears in the area.
Even the head of the 900-member BEAR League acknowledged that the bears are a nuisance, saying that the number of bears sleeping under houses has increased because people unwittingly feed them with their garbage and the bears begin to feel comfortable in the neighborhood. She also noted that the damage she saw to the cabin was the worst she had ever seen.
The problem of bear invasions is not all that new. In November of 2003, National Geographic published a story about a study of urban bears and wild land bears. The reason the bears are invading is because they have mastered the art of dumpster diving and find that it is easier to do that than look for food in the woods. Instead of taking care of the source of the fires (easily accessible garbage), people like the BEAR League director spend their time putting out the fires (evicting unwanted bears from cabins), then lash out when the bears get hurt. To them, the fault always rests on the ignorant people who don’t understand, or show compassion for, the bears.
Naturally, as with most controversies, the stories of the cabin owner and the BEAR League director vary. He says they were advised by her to leave the bear alone; she says she told them she could chase the bear away. He ended up calling the hit men after other avenues to remove the bears proved fruitless.
At the time they found the bears, the cabin owner and the BEAR League director thought it was only one bear, not seeing the two babies behind the mother. The hit men went in thinking they were going to kill only one bear. When they went in to do the deed, they said they were attacked by the three bears and shot them all in self-defense.
The BMTG suspects that it is likely that if the BEAR League director had tried to chase the mama bear out, the mama bear would have attacked in an effort to protect her babies. In all likelihood, the bear lover would have been mauled to death in an ironic twist of fate by the very creatures she so dearly loves; the bears would have left, not knowing or caring that they had killed one of their supporters; and the outcry would have been that the bears don’t have enough undisturbed land to live in.
Shooting of bears stirs outcry
The animals had invaded a cabin, but an advocate calls the deaths senseless.
Sacramento Bee, Barbara Barte Osborn, February 10, 2005
TAHOMA - Public reaction to the shooting Friday of three bears - a mother and two yearling cubs hibernating beneath a west Lake Tahoe cabin - is so intense the homeowners who authorized it fear for their lives.
"It's a nightmare - every other call is a threat from someone who's going to burn down my cabin or shoot me on sight," Russ Tonda said Wednesday.
Several weeks ago, the Granite Bay man and his wife discovered about $100,000 in damage to a cabin they've owned for 40 years in the Chamberlands neighborhood here. The culprits apparently were the bears, which had entered the crawl space through an unsecured door.
The bear family had helped themselves to food from the pantry and to couch cushions and blankets from the beds.
"It was the worst damage I've ever seen in a house," said Ann Bryant, director of the 900-member BEAR League, which works to help people and bears live in harmony.
Called by Placer County sheriff's deputies, Bryant discovered the adult bear, a small sow sleepily looking up from a red comforter. With her flashlight, Bryant did not spot the two blond yearling cubs apparently behind their mother.
The Tondas initially decided to leave the bear alone and with Bryant's help, secured a trapdoor into the house by placing heavy furniture and firewood on it.
Tonda said Bryant advised him and his wife to leave the bear undisturbed. "She said if we chased it out, it would not survive in the elements," he said.
But the insurance company refused inspection until the bear was gone, and Tonda contacted state Department of Fish and Game officials. Learning they wouldn't move the bear, he obtained a permit and hired three men to shoot the animal.
Bryant's account differs.
"I came out from under that house and said, 'We've got to get that bear out of there,' but they both insisted it be left alone," she said of the Tondas.
"I said I would call a friend with a backhoe to clear away the snow that had built up around the entrance. Then I would enter ... and shoot a blank behind it. After it ran out, I would put Pine-Sol inside and board up the entrance, and it would not come back."
She said she would advise leaving a bear under a house only if it were a sow that had just given birth and the babies might die if chased out.
"And then I would leave it only if the homeowner wanted it to stay, there had been no damage and the home was secured," she said. "I work with the sheriff's office doing at least one of these aversions a week - sometimes three a week. The bears have summer resting places, and they'll soon find one of those and make a new den."
Bryant said she was shocked that the Tondas did not want the bear removed. She was even more shocked when she learned that instead of calling her to chase the bear away later, they had hired men to shoot it.
Tonda defended his actions Wednesday: "I have five grandchildren. The last thing I want is for them to see a bear, panic and run. ...
"We feel terrible that the bears had to be killed," he said. "Home break-ins are becoming a major problem up there, and it's only going to get worse."
Bryant said the number of bears sleeping under houses has increased because people feed them, and they learn to feel comfortable in the neighborhood.
"Many of those houses are second homes or have weekend renters, and they either don't know better or deliberately leave out garbage, bird feeders and other food," she said.
Bryant said she was devastated when, called to the house again by deputies,
she found three officers, along with "three bloody assassins and three
dead bears - a mom and two yearling cubs."
According to a report by Placer Sheriff's Deputy John Lasagna, Tonda hired
three Sacramento men to kill the bears.
Bryant wants the men charged with negligent shooting in a neighborhood or for shooting three bears with a permit for only one. However, state and county officials said they doubt criminal charges will be filed.
The deputy's report said the men "ended up shooting all of the bears in either self-defense or to put them out of their misery after being wounded."
"I believe ... that the shots were not fired negligently or with a willful disregard for public safety," Lasagna's report said.
Fish and Game Capt. Mark Lucero said the agency is looking into the fact that three bears were killed although the permit was for one bear.
"The guys said when they entered, the bears attacked and they had to kill all three," he said.
"Who are we to say that didn't happen?" Placer County Deputy District Attorney Christopher Cattran said. "My gut feeling is it probably didn't, but I doubt criminal charges can be filed against them. Ann Bryant is frustrated, and I understand, but any charges would have to come from a law-enforcement agency."
Fish and Game Warden Vada Comacho, who arrived soon after the shooting, disposed of the dead bears.
Lucero said a trapper or other person authorized to shoot a bear is required
by the permit to dispose of it properly. But Comacho said he took action because
the scene was so contentious.
Bryant said the shooters "were furious and cussed at us and threatened
us when they weren't allowed to take the bears' carcasses."
She said the bears' gall bladders and claws could have been sold for as
much as $20,000.
Tonda, who was at the cabin at the time of the shooting but left when Bryant
arrived, said his phones had been ringing constantly ever since. In addition
to the threats, he said he was getting calls of support.
"What's needed is communication and a total program so that (the bears) can be tranquilized and relocated, but Fish and Game doesn't have the funding for that," he said.
Black Bears Adapting to City Living, Study Says
National Geographic News, John Roach, November 26, 2003
Black
bears (Ursus americanus) have efficiently adapted to the urban couch potato
lifestyle, according to a recent study that compared urban and wild land bears
in the Lake Tahoe region of Nevada.
Given a readily available and replenishing food resource—garbage dumpsters—the urban bears are nearly a third less active and weigh up to thirty percent more than bears living in more wild areas, biologists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society report.
"A lot of people suggested [bears] might alter their behavior in the presence of humans. We went out and specifically tested some of these hypotheses with rigorous science," said Jon Beckmann, a biologist with the society's Eastern Idaho Field Office in Rigby.
Beckmann and colleague Joel Berger report their findings in the current issue of the Journal of Zoology. The Wildlife Conservation Society biologists were at the University of Nevada, Reno, when they conducted the research for the study.
In addition to seeking grub in dumpsters behind fast-food joints and suburban neighborhoods instead of foraging for wild berries and deer in the mountains, urban bears have also become night owls, whereas wild land bears are active during the day.
Mike Mitchell, a U.S. Geological Survey bear researcher who teaches at the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University in Alabama, said the findings are pretty much what he would expect.
"Bears are extremely efficient foragers and so intelligent, resourceful, and adaptable," he said. "They'll figure out a good food resource almost instantly and make the best use of it as quickly as they can."
Mitchell added that urban bears are not lazier than wild land bears, just more efficient. Since they live in a garbage-can-rich environment, they expend less energy than do bears that have to forage in untamed lands for hours to get the same caloric intake.
Wild Land Impact?
Beckmann and Berger present evidence in their study that more and more bears
are relocating to the cities, leaving wild lands sparsely populated by the
big, furry carnivores. They question what impact this change in behavior is
having on the environment.
"It's possible that if we change their behavior, we can lose the ecological processes they are involved in," said Beckmann. "For example, bears that now have a reliance on garbage may not be doing the things bears have historically done in those systems."
While the ecological role of bears is poorly understood, biologists believe they may be important in decomposing felled logs, dispersing seeds of berries, and removing rotting flesh from the forest floor.
Mitchell said that he is not certain of the extent to which non-urban bears are moving to the cities, and if they are what sort of an effect the re-location would have on the untamed environment.
"In principle, one has to believe that an effect exists, but defining that effect clearly and quantifying its magnitude might be very difficult to do," he said.
Bear-Proof Garbage
Regardless of the impact an exodus of bears from the wild lands to the cities
might have on the environment, the researchers all agree that a population
of bears relying on food from garbage cans is not a healthy situation.
There is no evidence to suggest that the garbage itself is a bad diet—though Beckmann said he can't imagine it's good, either—but the increase in urban bear populations has resulted in an increase in bear mortality, primarily from collisions with vehicles.
The dumpster-diving bears are also quick to learn where the food in the garbage cans comes from, and incidents of bears breaking into cars and homes when people are asleep are on the rise.
"Such conflicts rarely work out well for the bears," said Mitchell. "It is hard to imagine the development of a stable, commensal relationship between high density populations of bears and people."
As a remedy to the problem, Beckmann and Berger suggest that city planners and county commissioners require individuals and businesses to purchase and use bear-proof dumpsters.
"We know they work," said Beckmann. "Once they go into a homeowners association, the bears no longer visit."
Mitchell added: "As focused as bears are on food, and as capable as they are of finding it, the less that bears associate people with food, the better for both bears and people."