Surge in grizzly bear shootings under provincial program sparks alarm

[trevj]

Pardon my ignorance, but why are people storing food and trash on their front porches in grizzly country?

Seems like a great way of attracting bears to places where they’re not wanted, no?

Because rather than it being "Grizzly Country", this area is a place that seldom sees a grizzly. Around here, they seldom come out of the high country, and in general, they avoid humans, which, IMO, gives them a far better chance of survival. They are seen, and watched if they do show up, and word soon gets around if one is around. Like I said, I have seen 4 (and heard of one other, the twin of the problem bear that was shot on the woman's porch), in 12 years, and only 2 of those 4 actually made it back to the high country, highlighting the risk to them being in contact with people...

Was always pretty common to find a deep freeze, out on the porch when I grew up, still see a fair few, esp at older and smaller homes than the typical mini-McMansion that seems the standard home today. Often enough, you will see two freezers, one working, the other, usually the one that used to work, used as a secure box to store the garbage in, so the bears, and other pests cannot get in to it. Less of an attraction than, say, having fruit trees in the yard, or wild berries like Saskatoons or Hawthorns, both of which are abundant around here, and get pretty worked over by the black bear population (which is fairly abundant around here).

 

[CeeZer]

It appears bears are extremely aggressive this fall in Japan and Russia as well, read articles claiming many human lives and hundreds of bears shot in say Russia to protect people and to minimize further killings. I'm not sure they have grizzlies in those areas but brown and black bears.

 

[yidava25]

They estimate 1100 bears, based on hair samples from rub trees. I'd be intrigued to know exactly what the sample size was and how widespread the sampled area, as well as their methods of extrapolation, if any.
All I know is we have grizzlies up here in the High Level/Ft. Vermilion area now, which is a first.

 

[mcpiper]

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[trevj]

They estimate 1100 bears, based on hair samples from rub trees. I'd be intrigued to know exactly what the sample size was and how widespread the sampled area, as well as their methods of extrapolation, if any.
All I know is we have grizzlies up here in the High Level/Ft. Vermilion area now, which is a first.

Given the abilities of just the two local grizzlies that I am aware of, to be helo-transported long, to very long distances, and still end up back where they started, likely in less time than it took to process the payment to the Helicopter outfit that did the work, I gotta suggest that the 'experts', are working more on guesses than hard data sets.

As I have posted here before, the 'official estimate', for this zone, is that there are ~25 Grizz in it. Given that two of them have been transported across SEVERAL zones, and ended up at the same places they were removed from, extrapolating that little data point across the capabilities of all the other Grizz in the surrounding zones, I kinda draw the conclusion that the Experts, are talking out of the orifice they use to excrete used food!

It was not all that long ago, that the standard answer for seeing ANY predator, was to just shoot it, including eagles, hawks, owls, and about any of the four legged ones, and nobody reported anything to anyone, it was just how things were. So there ARE actually some pretty large gaps in the records, because nobody kept any... I kinda doubt that there never were Grizz in your area, just that they had been all but, or, entirely, eradicated, and are just now building a population that requires the space to expand in to.

Honestly, I expect that there will be bad things happen to people, which will not bode well for the bears, whether it happens officially, or if people just start taking care of things quietly...

The saying, that a fed bear, is a dead bear, I pointed out to one of the local bear-hugger types that was involved in our issues with the afore-mentioned 225 pound female, has way less to do with food, than it does with becoming accustomed and comfortable, with close contact with humans. Close proximity without an averse reaction, usually ends with a conflict and a dead bear. The interactions that result in damage or threat to a person, are even more certain to mean a dead bear.