Snowshoe HareA little more information came out about the 22-year-old man killed in New Jersey at http://www.nj.com/passaic-county/index.ssf/2014/09/deadly_bear _attack_911_call_reveals_hikers _confusion_terror.html. Many questions remain.
Here in Minnesota, a man apparently was attacked by a wounded bear he was tracking in Pine County in east central Minnesota. http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/09/27/man-allegedly-attacked-by-black-bear-in-pine-co/.
It makes us recall another such attack in that same area about a decade ago. It was 2 weeks into the hunting season when a woodcock researcher stumbled onto the bear in dense vegetation. A mention of that incident is in the IBN Newsletter from February 2003 on page 9. http://www.bearbiology.com/fileadmin/tpl/Downloads/IBN_Newsletters/IBN_February_2003.pdf. On page 17 you will find another article of interest.
Leaping deerWe remember how different it was when we approached Blackheart when she was recovering from being struck and rolled under a vehicle. She had sought such dense vegetation that we had to be practically on top of her before we could see her. She evidently felt vulnerable and was hesitant to let a person come close, but she showed no inclination to attack. We fed and watered her daily until she recovered. She produced cubs that winter. Over and over, bears show that as they fear people less, they are less likely to attack.
We recall another story of an adult female that was lying beside a road for days after being struck back in 1967. A gentle approach enabled us to roll her onto a stretcher and carry her to a pickup and a pen. All gentle. All slow, doing only what she showed she would allow. A keeper came into the pen and kicked her twice to demonstrate to Lynn, an intern at the time, that the bear had nerve damage and couldn’t walk. The bear knew the difference in treatment. She sprang up and chased the man out of the pen, managing to nail him on the calf as his leg went out the gate. The bear collapsed, blocking the gate. She did no more than raise her head as Lynn stepped over her to exit.
We fear that a hunter killed a mother of 3 cubs here in Eagles Nest Community at 7 PM on September 25. It is not a family we know. The mother and her three cubs had visited a community feeding station several evenings. She was last there at 2:19 AM on the 25th when she and her cubs ran off as RC and her 3 cubs appeared. That evening, a shot rang out near the feeding station at 7 PM. An hour later, the 3 cubs came in without their mother. She has not been seen since.
We regard killing mothers with cubs as extremely unethical as well as crowding in around community feeding stations.
This brings to memory words from ecologist Aldo Leopold, founder of the Science of Wildlife Conservation and author of A_Sand_County_Almanac (1949) which has sold more than two million copies. Leopold was influential in the development of environmental ethics, taking a holistic ecological approach. We empathize with Leopold when he says, “This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise. These things, I say, should have come to us. I fear they have not come to many.” (Leopold 1949). Those thoughts, and the need to educate represent why we constantly try to upgrade the Bear Center and are now including the Northwoods Ecology Hall. The pictures in this update are being considered for the outside of the building to show that we are expanding to include the animals black bears interact with and the habitats where they meet.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center