Capture
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| Work after a capture |
To individualize each bear, we are currently making an effort to capture
and to radio-collar every bear in the town. When bear problems occur
repeatedly in one location, we put out our bear-friendly traps to
catch that bear. They are traps specially designed so that a bear
will not break its teeth or claws biting and scratching at the trap.
When we catch a new bear, we weigh and measure it. We collect hair
and blood samples, and then attach ear tags and a radio collar before
releasing it. |
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Release
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| Releasing a bear |
We do a hard release, with aversive conditioning (the exception
is for bears caught in mountainous areas). When we release a bear,
we carefully plan the placement of the trap, vehicles, and people
at the release site so that the bear will go in the direction we want
him to go and not turn and run at us. The bear will be barked at by
dogs and yelled at from the moment he is in the trap. When he comes
out of the trap, we pepper spray him, shoot him in the rump with an
air gun, and make a lot of noise with firecrackers. The whole time,
people are yelling and dogs are barking. In this way, we have bears
associate people with bad, scary experiences so that they will learn
to avoid people.
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Monitor
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| Monitoring during the night |
After we release a bear, we monitor it with radio telemetry. This work
is done day and night, especially from around the end of May to the
end of September. During these periods we go out every night to investigate
bear activities, as well as their whereabouts. This is because our
bears are active mostly at night in the town. By monitoring, we collect
data to help us understand the personality and conflict level of each
bear. This data gives us some ideas as to which bears may be causing
damage when we get reports from residents.
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Investigating the Conflict Level of Each Bear
Each radio-collared bear is first evaluated on the basis of the level
of conflict with residents in the area. When we find a bear close
to houses, we try to locate the bear precisely without scaring him
away. Then the next day, during the daytime when the bear is not there,
we go back to the site and find out exactly what it was doing there.
We repeat this a couple of times to determine how high its conflict
level is.
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Bear Shepherding®
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| In pursuit of a bear with dog and
search antenna |
This is a method developed by the Wind River Bear Institute to systematically chase bears
away from unwanted areas in an attempt to educate them. With this
method, we teach bears what areas they can be in and what areas they
should not use. This also teaches them to correct inappropriate behavior.
After determining a bear's conflict level, we teach it a lesson when
we find him too close to houses. We use voices, dogs, air guns, and
firecrackers to push the bear away. One team pushes the bear from
behind, and one team blocks the flank to ensure that the bear goes
exactly where we want it to go. We will not stop chasing, yelling
and the dogs don't stop barking until the bear enters an accepted
area. By repeating this several times bears can learn what area they
are permitted to enter and areas they should not. We call this work
"Bear Shepherding®."
We have been practicing this method under the guidance of the WRBI
(Wind River Bear Institute) since 2002. In the summer of 2003
and 2004, WRBI brought their highly trained Karelian Bear Dogs to work with us. In 2004, we obtained
our own bear dog puppies from WRBI, and they are currently in training.
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Putting Down Problem Bears
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| Injecting medicine for euthansia |
When determining the conflict levels of bears, there are times when
we are forced to make the decision whether to put down problem bears.
This becomes necessary when the conflict level of a bear is so high
that it has the potential of harming people deliberately to get food.
Bears with a high conflict level are hard to teach and it would take
tremendous time and effort. Most of the time, it would not be worth
the effort as they would simply revert to the same or indeed a higher
level of conflict given a short period of time. Our first priority
is public safety and we are not willing to risk human lives. |
