White-tailed deerAs we mentioned before, we are walking bear trails, carrying food, and recording bear reactions to us in order to obtain actual data regarding the highly publicized DNR claim that we train bears to approach people for food. The DNR found no witness to corroborate their claim, and I have never seen a bear do that uninvited. To maximize chances of a bear approaching, we are doing it at nightfall when bears are most active, and we are doing it during the hyperphagia period. DNR General Counsel Sherry A. Enzler was good to give an official response to an email we sent to Conservation Officer Captain Ken Soring letting him know we would be starting after shooting hours are over to make sure we do not disturb hunters. On August 29, General Counsel Enzler replied, “Please be advised that, consistent with the opinion of the vast majority of bear experts, the DNR considers sending hikers out with food on heavily used bear trails during times when bears are most active is an inherently dangerous activity – even more so during hunting seasons. DNR expects that Rogers will adequately warn the hiking volunteers of the dangers involved in this endeavor and will assume the risk of any resulting injury which may occur.”
None of us feel any danger. In all my decades of walking with bears or deer day or night I have never had a problem. In the decades that local residents have hiked and jogged in the study area, they have had no problem.
Maybe I should qualify that. I know of two instances that were stated to be “problems.” See what you think.
In the first instance, a man scared cubs up at tree while riding his bike on a forest trail. He stopped. The mother sat at the base of the tree watching what he was doing. The man walked his bike into the woods far out around her and rode straight to the WRI. When he burst in the second floor door, he was obviously shaken. Talking as if something major had happened, he said, “Well, Lynn, it finally happened. One of your bears stared me down.” I asked, “Did it approach you?” “No, she just sat there and stared me down!” I asked, “You mean she looked at you?” “Yes, she stared me down.” From the location he gave, it was June and her cubs. I asked if I could take him there to meet her. He gave an emphatic “No!”
Donna Rogers teaching about monarchsIn the second instance, the man’s wife described to the court how she was walking on Trygg Road and a bear some distance back in the woods was walking the same direction she was. We know there is a bear trail some hundred feet back in the woods that parallels the road. She believed the bear was “stalking” her. Then, as she neared her driveway, the bear emerged from the woods a ways back on the road and lay down.
Neither bear approached the man or his wife for food.
The two stories reinforce what I have long known. If a person is afraid of an animal, anything the animal does or says is interpreted as a threat. All I can say is thank goodness most people in this community know better. As part of the bear-feeding for over half a century in this community, residents learned directly from the bears themselves, and no “expert” without that experience can tell them different.
A problem with the Counsel’s statement above is that the vast majority of bear experts she mentioned have little experience with non-tranquilized bears and few, if any, have had the opportunity to get over their fear of being in the woods with bears day or night. Our local wildlife manager said in 2007 ‘he wouldn’t want to be in the woods with bears without a rifle.’ With that attitude, which is widespread, “experts” are not likely to do what the volunteers here do without any hint of fear—at least of the bears.
On a related topic, many people feel that once a bear gets a taste of human food it is hooked and will soon become too lazy to forage for wild food. We know that isn’t so. I’ve been writing that that isn’t so since 1976 (Rogers 1976; 1987). The long-term radio-tracking of bears that visit community feeding stations in our current study say it isn’t so. Lily Fans know better, and a study that has begun in Colorado is another example that it isn’t so as you can see in this brief news video http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/04/13/lengthy-study-finds-most-black-bears-wont-rely-on-human-food/.
On another note, Lily and her cubs were caught on a trail cam again last night. If they are as nocturnal as the camera would suggest, she will be safe.
On the down side, after writing about the quiet day yesterday, the local guide and his group were dragging a small to medium size bear out of the woods at 9:44 PM a half mile north of here as I was driving home. I stopped, but the guide refused to let me see and identify it.
The feeding sites in the community attract more than bears. Deer and raccoons get their share, and one feeder reported having 80 mallard and black ducks in his yard this morning.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
Literature cited:
Rogers, L. L. 1976. Effects of mast and berry crop failures on survival, growth, and reproductive success of black bears in northeastern Minnesota. Transactions of the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference 41:431-438.
Rogers, L. L. 1987. Effects of food supply and kinship on social behavior, movements, and population dynamics of black bears in northeastern Minnesota. Wildlife Monograph 97. 72 pp.