A front page article on diversionary feeding by Aldo Santin of the Winnipeg Free Press was carried by the Vancouver Sun and other Canadian newspapers, setting off a round of interviews for Lynn with newspaper reporters and radio talk shows across Canada today. As expected, this controversial topic generated an opposing comment. A professional firearms trainer who wrote that he is “considered perhaps one of the top shotgun trainers in Canada when it comes to bear protection in wilderness areas” was passionate in condemning the “ill-conceived advice” from an “academic from the US.” Most new ideas are slow to be accepted. At this point, everyone knows that food can lead bears into trouble. What is new is the data that food can be a powerful non-lethal management tool for leading bears out of trouble. The reporters asked good questions which should lead to more discussion and study.
Examples we gave of diversionary feeding included:
- The 8-year U. S. Forest Service study around a campground and residential area that reduced removals of “problem” bears 88% compared with the previous 3 years. That study is coming out as a peer-reviewed article in the fall issue of Human-Wildlife Interactions Journal.
- The 50 years of feeding in our present study area where nuisance complaints are 80% lower than the statewide average. Two things make a complaint—what the bear does and how people feel about it. Here, people know bears well enough that the mere sighting of a bear does not generate a complaint.
- The Bear League’s diversionary feeding around Lake Tahoe back in 2007 when house break-ins were rampant except in areas where diversionary feeding was being done. Ann Bryant presented this study at the International Bear Conference in Ottawa, Ontario, a few weeks ago.
- Biologist Mike Madel’s work in Montana moving winter-killed cattle carcasses away from ranches to locations where grizzlies can eat them without problem. His work has drastically reduced problems around ranches.
We’re writing an early update because interviews with British Columbia stations are scheduled for this evening. One is ‘All Points West’ and the other ‘On The Coast.’
Amidst the interviews, we were thinking about the upcoming hunting season and wondering how the DNR was coming on the letter they said they’d send to local hunters. We called the DNR and learned from the woman who answered that the head of the wildlife division was working on the letter as we spoke.
Along the same line, a few minutes later, we got an email from a Lily fan with this link to an article asking hunters not to shoot radio-collared bears http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/MN-Hunters-Asked-Not-To-Shoot-Radio-Collared-Bears-128017748.html
Shortly after that, we received a call from WCCO-TV, setting up an interview about sparing radio-collared bears. That interview is in response to a press release sent out today by the Minnesota DNR asking hunters not to shoot radio-collared bears being studied by us or the DNR.
We weren’t able to get out in the field today, but GPS locations show Lily, Hope, Faith, June, and the other GPSed bears to be okay.
Another plus today was receiving the proofs of one of our articles coming out in the Fall Issue of Human-Wildlife Interactions Journal.
Today, you registered 42,560 votes to move Soudan Underground Mine State Park 2,662 votes closer to 1st place (316,108 votes behind) and to move it 13,891 votes farther ahead of 3rd place (773,734 votes ahead) at http://m.livepositively.com/park_details.jsp?parkId=556 with 19 days of voting to go.
Something new is coming out in the Web Store tomorrow. It is a 3-DVD set ($24.95) of all the updates of 2010 (word searchable), including the pictures and videos, as well as all the Den Cam highlights captured by Linda Gibson in 2010. More on this tomorrow.
As we were writing this, a Speedee Delivery truck drove in with a box. A Lily fan had anonymously sent 2 pies—a coconut cream pie and an apple-strawberry-rhubarb pie—delaying our weight reduction plans another day or two. Thank you.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center