June bear - Sept 2010The complete Steve Jobs quote is “Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.”
This update is prompted by pictures a hunter allowed to be posted showing his 12-year-old son feeding a radio-collared research bear named Mickey. We asked him not to post those pictures for three reasons:
- We don’t advocate hand-feeding bears.
- The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources advises “never feed a bear,” and we don’t want to show contrary behavior.
- What the hunter’s son is doing is so contrary to what most people believe about bears, that unless a person is free of the usual misconceptions about bears, their kneejerk reaction is that it is extremely dangerous—precisely the reaction these pictures have been getting.
Today, the hunter wrote on his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lilly-the-Black-Bear/157132420988255:
I would like to clarify my own position as to the research done by WRI and dispel some of the misconceptions that seem to float freely on several pages.
1. I do not have any issues with the habituation of the bears for the purpose of collaring them, and gaining the bears confidence so as to allow researcher to follow and film bears in their wild habitat. Very cool stuff, that would not be possible to do in any other way. I would like to see the research done by WRI continue.
2. Bears in the research area are 4 times less likely to be killed at hunter's bait sites, despite this habituation to humans, as witnessed in the photos. Though the bear Mickey was killed nearby at a hunter's bait site, he, and other yearling research bears are more likely to survive the hunting season than non-habituated yearling bears elsewhere in the state. This is not a number pulled out of thin air, but based upon the best educated population estimates (20,000), and the number of bears killed each hunting season(2-3000), verses the number of known bears killed from within the research area each season. 10% or more of of bears are killed every year across the state vs. 2-3% of the known bears in the research area.
3. The hand feeding and interaction with the bears is dangerous to a degree, but no more dangerous than driving a car for instance, or working with large livestock on a farm. Calculated risk. My children and I have been around domestic bred, penned bears, habituated wild bears, and have also hunted bears. Each animal must be judged as an individual, and precaution taken accordingly. A wild, non-habituated bear could not be approached, nor would you dare pet one if you could corner it. Even a human contact habituated black bear must be approached with respect for space, and always allowed an escape route, or if it feels pressured or trapped it may act defensively, and someone could get hurt.
Misconceptions about bear danger, habituation, food-conditioning and feeding are rampant. Too often, they form the basis for management.
Recent scientific articles on the topics include the following:
- A newly published peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal Human-Wildlife Interactions entitled “Does Diversionary Feeding Create Nuisance Bears and Jeopardize Public Safety?” http://www.berrymaninstitute.org/journal/fall2011/16%20Rogers%20p.287-295.pdf
- An invited commentary on habituation in the same journalhttp://www.berrymaninstitute.org/journal/fall2011/5_HWI_5.2_Rogers_p173-196.pdf
- An 11-minute invited presentation for the International Bear Conference in Ottawa, Ontario, on July 22 thisIt can be seen, complete with photos, on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/bearstudy#p/u/6/LGQcGEzy6Oc . It is entitled “Can Food Lead Bears Out Of Trouble?” You’ve heard “A fed bear is a dead bear.” These data sets are about fed bears being live bears.
- A description of bear research conducted at the Wildlife Research Institutehttp://www.bearstudy.org/website/publications/other-papers/1414-wri-2008-research-plan-and-public-safety-assessment.html
- An 18-minute invited presentation on diversionary feeding as carried out in Lake Tahoe by Ann Bryant during a severe natural foodIt was presented by Ann Bryant of the The Bear League at the International Bear Conference in Ottawa, Ontario, on July 22 this year http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98iQe_UZ-Fc&;feature=related Results were vastly contrary to expert predictions.
In our research, we use habituation and food-conditioning like they were used in the studies of chimpanzees and gorillas by Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. We use trust instead of traps and tranquilizers and learn more than we thought possible.
adult female's travels - 2010In the field, a handful of nuts enables us to adjust a radio-collar or change batteries in a GPS unit. It also is a greeting that reinforces our voices as we approach. After completing any maintenance work on the radio-collars and GPS units, we may leave or stick with the bear or bear family for hours. In the old days, 24 hours was typical. The bears don’t expect more food and go about their lives, ignoring the researcher. If they even look at us, we wonder why. They have more important things to do. We are neither friends nor enemies. We are not significant food-givers nor competitors. We are just there, recording data and/or recording video.
wild bear agendasOne reason we are studying bears in the study area is that bears have been fed there by a dozen or so households since 1961. In this and in a similar study (number 1 above) bear problems are 80 to 88% reduced. This is a significant finding. If the bears that were fed became prone to aggression, attacks, and house break-ins, as many would predict, the residents would not have continued feeding now for 50 years. We are learning how the supplemental food affects the bears’ lives. In the process, we are learning more than we thought possible about black bear behavior, language, diet, social organization, ecology, and hibernation. For those who believe that little can be learned from bears that accept an observer and have access to supplemental food, we can only say you’d have to see it to believe it. The links above provide some details. Videos of the bears living their lives are on bear.org and on the bearstudy channel on YouTube. See what you think.
We are examining very widely held misconceptions, replacing them with facts, and sharing it all with the public.
Regarding habituation and food-conditioning, the bears have disproved most of what we believed and what is believed by others, including many biologists and managers. We found that:
- Habituation and food-conditioning are generally specific to locations, situations, and (to an extent) individual. The 11-minute YouTube presentation has more on this.
- Bears have personalities. All bears are not created equal. Some bears learned our voices and learned to accept us anywhere. These are the bears we can walk with in the woods. Others run from us outside the locations where they are used to seeing people. Within the locations where they are used to seeing people, they accept anyone. The bears that will accept us away from the feeding stations will not let us see them if we try to sneak up on them. Along that line, we let a wildlife professional try to home in on the radio signals of the bear that had the most years experience with people at feeding stations. In this case, the bear was deep in the woods. The professional got near enough for strong signals several times but never saw the bear. The old bear circled around him repeatedly and eventually lined out for a less disturbing area.
- Don’t over-generalize. Think of a bell-shaped curve for any behavioral trait. There are bears far out in the tails that are unusual. For any question you are asked, the likely answer is, “Some will and some won’t.” The percentages vary with the questions. It’s the same with people.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center