B.C. mulls return of grizzly hunting in controversial report

[Ardent]

really?
do you think a 30 strong (or weak) population is not affected by inbreding?
give your head a shake!

No, what I really think is that 30 bears in an area bigger than BC are indeed at a risk of suffering effects from inbreeding, and shooting some isn’t the answer.

Have you been in the Nahatlatch by chance recently? You’ll immediately note the problem there if so.

 

[conor_90]

I appreciate your point but find it unlikely those thirty bears range over an area larger than BC. The Gobi may be that large, but are bears spread entirely throughout it?

Edit: again not a bear scientist and using Wikipedia as a source but it seems that they are spread out over ~24k km2 which while not a small area does not approach the size of BC

 

[legi0n]

I see your point
but that (survival of the weak) might just happen because the environment allows it
in my "evolution 101" class they said: usually the fittest survives unless "luck" helps
the example was, a genetically inferior subspecies of fox and a genetically superior subspecies spread to 2 peninsulae
then the water level rose and the 2 groups had to survive on what was now islands
on one island there were plenty of mice and the lesser subspecies survived against the odds of them being genetically inferior
the better subspecies died of starvation

edit: my reply was meant for Ardent

 

[conor_90]

Sure; and stochastic events/ bad luck (car strikes, bears getting shot for raiding chicken coops etc) are a lot more impactful on small populations. Population bottleneck is a #####

Not to mention selective pressure is not as precise as the textbooks may suggest, sometimes being the "fittest" in one sense is deleterious in the long term

 

[legi0n]

Sure; and stochastic events/ bad luck (car strikes, bears getting shot for raiding chicken coops etc) are a lot more impactful on small populations

absolutely correct
the smaller the pop the higher the impact of outliers
(for those savvy in statistics, the lower the N numbers the higher the uncertainty)

 

[conor_90]

Since we are doing math and going back to bio / arky 101 let's not forget hardy and weinberg; grizz are down at least three points for maintaining allele frequencies. "Natural" selection, lack of gene flow, and small population size are all occurring in suffering populations

Increasing selective pressure for successful bears won't help by that metric

That said, manage populations not species is the order of the day, if capacity allows or calls for it, bring back the hunt. Or as some might say "trust the science"

 

[legi0n]

Since we are doing math and going back to bio / arky 101 let's not forget hardy and weinberg; grizz are down at least three points for maintaining allele frequencies. "Natural" selection, lack of gene flow, and small population size are all occurring.

Increasing selective pressure for successful bears won't help by that metric

please tell me more about confounding factors and small population exceptions (due to not being able to do statistics in such)
meanwhile I will be drinking beer and file a warranty claim for my PSE Drive NXT bow that cracked a limb
the grizzlies are safe for the time being

edit: tongue in cheek, you are correct again
not arguing any more tonight

 

[conor_90]

Sometimes dialogue is to keep the audience in the loop, not forward the plot

I'm back to SK, the grizzlies will be safe from me for the time being too I mean judging by my lack of success on the multiple grizzly hunts I've gone on they are safe from me in general

And hell, if I could do statistics I'd probably be a biologist

 

[Ardent]

I appreciate your point but find it unlikely those thirty bears range over an area larger than BC. The Gobi may be that large, but are bears spread entirely throughout it?

Edit: again not a bear scientist and using Wikipedia as a source but it seems that they are spread out over ~24k km2 which while not a small area does not approach the size of BC

Yep, fair, the study area was 46,000sq Kms. Or roughly one and a half Vancouver Islands. Despite only 30 bears being present in that, the population is healthy on an individual scale. Genetic drift is a concern, but shooting some is not going to fix that needles to say. Same for BC grizzlies, though I know you agree I’m writing for the thread. It’s simply the wrong justification for the hunt.

 

[legi0n]

...Genetic drift is a concern, but shooting some is not going to fix that needles to say...

so say you
but that's not what "science says"

 

[MiG25]

How does a small population benefit from a few large dominant boars doing all the breeding, killing the cubs (and sows too) and dominating the best food sources?

 

[Ardent]

Because quite simply having watched it in person, those younger weaker boars are being held out in genetic reserve until the dominant boar has culled the weak young and ensured the best genes, and cubs with the best chance (largest, with the strongest sow) are making it to maturity. Those younger, weaker boars get their time in the sun, and there seems a mistaken impression the dominant boars (there are multiple) manage to kill ALL the cubs. Not at all.

Removing genes, especially the best ones, is not helpful for bears, quite the opposite. In BC it’s likely neutral or close to, as there are so many bears. At risk populations, if given habitat will see new individuals move in and bring fresh genes in BC. As an absolute rule, good habitat will be populated and used. And marginal degraded and developed habitat will result in marginal populations.

Hard as it is to believe, tens of millions of years of evolution has laid better systems than our highly questionable wildlife management strategies. I naturally understand the desire to hunt, I just want to be honest about the methodology and motivations rather than continue to push the grizzly’s range back and pretend we’re helping and ‘managing’. As the Texas and California grizzlies were managed into extinction, and now the clients come hunt up here.

If 30 bears can hang on in an area bigger than BC, and the size of the Gobi matters as it means there are no other gene pools that can roam in as Grizzlies so often do in a place like BC, our second largest grizzly population on the continent is not in need to shooting to improve its genetics. Hunting for human-bear conflict reasons, or simply if there is a huntable and sustainable population, those are different and more realistic questions.

Lest we manage grizzlies like we managed coastal old growth.

 

[MiG25]

Because quite simply having watched it in person, those younger weaker boars are being held out in genetic reserve until the dominant boar has culled the weak young and ensured the best genes, and cubs with the best chance (largest, with the strongest sow) are making it to maturity. Those younger, weaker boars get their time in the sun, and there seems a mistaken impression the dominant boars (there are multiple) manage to kill ALL the cubs. Not at all.

Removing genes, especially the best ones, is not helpful for bears, quite the opposite. In BC it’s likely neutral or close to, as there are so many bears. At risk populations, if given habitat will see new individuals move in and bring fresh genes in BC. As an absolute rule, good habitat will be populated and used. And marginal degraded and developed habitat will result in marginal populations.

Hard as it is to believe, tens of millions of years of evolution has laid better systems than our highly questionable wildlife management strategies. I naturally understand the desire to hunt, I just want to be honest about the methodology and motivations rather than continue to push the grizzly’s range back and pretend we’re helping and ‘managing’. As the Texas and California grizzlies were managed into extinction, and now the clients come hunt up here.

If 30 bears can hang on in an area bigger than BC, and the size of the Gobi matters as it means there are no other gene pools that can roam in as Grizzlies so often do in a place like BC, our second largest grizzly population on the continent is not in need to shooting to improve its genetics. Hunting for human-bear conflict reasons, or simply if there is a huntable and sustainable population, those are different and more realistic questions.

Lest we manage grizzlies like we managed coastal old growth.

You're wrong. Grizzlies are prolific and in a small population the dominant boars are limiting the population. Every boar is bigger/stronger than a cub, it's not a genetic weakness that cubs are weaker than boars.

The Texas Grizzly is known from 1 (one) example, likely a vagrant, and the California Grizzly had an artificially high population due to the ranching practices where only the hide and tallow had value, the meat being left for scavengers.

Want more Grizzlies, get rid of the bigger boars every few years before they start mating with their (surviving) daughters. Not only do they kill cubs and sows, they also dominate the best food sources and drive sows with cubs into conflict with people.

The Grizzly's range is expanding into new areas at this time, Vancouver Island for example and expanding back into areas formerly occupied, the Prairies.

The Gobi Grizzly is a matter for the Mongols and is a classic example of an evolutionary cul de sack.

A viable population is a moral question, an expanding population with sacred cow status is a political question.

 

[Ardent]

It would be exceedingly convenient to never question one’s own views. That’s the very basis of science and analytical thinking, being able to accept new and contrary information. It’s certainly happened in my life.

Like not accepting grizzlies are very likely to have been here longer than than humans have, their oldest fossil predates ours substantially. The question isn’t if they’ve been here more than 23,000 years (pre-glaciation), it’s if we were. That’s been known since I was in college in 2004. You can’t just call this fiction unfortunately, it’s supported by radio carbon dates and DNA in southern BC populations. There wasn’t just one brown bear migration, and that should be common sense. There was pre and post glacial maximum, we just didn’t find the evidence until 20 years ago.

And they certainly have been here far, far longer than your and my ancestors have been. There’s no question on their right to be here if you feel we have one.

University of Alaska Fairbanks,

 

[MiG25]

The recent paper of the BC Govt says "recent" and 11,000 years, so the smart people there have not accepted that.

The peoples of Morocco and Mexico are far more different than the Atlas and Mexican Grizzlies were indicating a longer seperation.

 

[Ardent]

And you feel the BC government is a perfectly informed and a reliable source on all matters of evolution, prehistory occupation, and wildlife management? More than likely, that was written by a 22 year old intern.

What’s quoted above was not, that’s hard and factually supported science, taken from multiple angles of study and measure (sediment strata dates, radio carbon dates, DNA). All show the grizzly has been here longer. And so what? It may also help explain the oft cited and claimed different behaviour of southern mountain bears on this forum, they carry differing DNA and evolution having migrated here tens of thousands of years earlier than coastal populations. The extinct lower 48 populations were formed of the same, makes sense when you look at glacial maximums. As for Texas, that was simply the last one, not the only one. Texas has been beat down wildlife wise for centuries now, as they inhabited Mexico, they inhabited Texas. They were just all but shot out before cartridges were invented.

They have every much a right to be here as you or I, unless you’re arguing that as late arrivals we shouldn’t be considered rightfully present here either. If that’s the vein of argument, they have us beat.

 

[MiG25]

It's interesting that my position that Mountain Grizzlies are more aggressive may now be evidence that they were south of the Ice.

The "relic" population is that of Kodiak Island with occassional gene flow off the Island.

The Grizzly was absolutely not south of the Ice. Just like the Moose is the same animal from Norway to Nova Scotia, and the Elk (I'd say Wapiti but that is just another misnomer) is the same from the Caucasus to Northern Mexico. These are all newcomers. The Grizzly never made it far into Mexico or the other side of the Mississippi, the Eastern Woodlands are an ideal habitat and they never made it there, and of course it was full of People, while the Mountains and Prairies were sparcely inhabited.

The "Great Arc of the Wild Sheep", to borrow Clark's term, closesly parallels the range of the Grizzly, and those south of the Ice, Bighorns, are clearly different from those of northern BC, Yukon, Alaska and Kamchatka and just look at the diversity of Species while the Grizzly is the same from Morocco to Mexico.

This matters because there is an attempt to exclude People from Nature (30x30 etc), People were here before Grizzlies, People were here before the trees and saw the Glacial Lakes catastrophically drain. But somehow, Grizzlies are a symbol of the Wilderness (that never was).

Psuedo Science and Psuedo History combined with Politics says Grizzlies are anything but a late arrival.

 

[Ardent]

It's interesting that my position that Mountain Grizzlies are more aggressive may now be evidence that they were south of the Ice.

The Grizzly was absolutely not south of the Ice.

The stratigraphy, radio carbon dates, and DNA indicate otherwise. You’ll have to forgive me for believing the science, not a guy on the internet. But show me research explaining how they’re wrong in the science, my mind’s open.

 

[medvedqc]

It would be exceedingly convenient to never question one’s own views. That’s the very basis of science and analytical thinking, being able to accept new and contrary information. It’s certainly happened in my life.

Like not accepting grizzlies are very likely to have been here longer than than humans have, their oldest fossil predates ours substantially. The question isn’t if they’ve been here more than 23,000 years (pre-glaciation), it’s if we were. That’s been known since I was in college in 2004. You can’t just call this fiction unfortunately, it’s supported by radio carbon dates and DNA in southern BC populations. There wasn’t just one brown bear migration, and that should be common sense. There was pre and post glacial maximum, we just didn’t find the evidence until 20 years ago.

And they certainly have been here far, far longer than your and my ancestors have been. There’s no question on their right to be here if you feel we have one.

University of Alaska Fairbanks,

very interesting thank you Angus.

 

[MiG25]

That paper's garbage. Guess you guys didn't read the word "probably", nor wondered how, if a supposed 26,000 year old bone rewrites history, how there can be a population thought extinct for 35,000 years, given the scarcity of bear remains and how much of Beringia is under water it is a pretty bold statement to claim it didn't exist there at that time.