Let Bears Live Free: Jack Boudreau's Perspective Part III
By 250 News
by Jack Boudreau
This is the third segment in a four part series submitted by Jack Boudreau, outdoorsman and local author.
Boudreau has written several books which focus on outdoor life in the region including; Grizzly Bear Mountain, Crazy Man's Creek, Mountains, Campfires and Memories, Wilderness Dreams ,and , Wild and Free.
Last month, he attended the Charlie Russell “Living with Bears” presentation at UNBC.
Boudreau offers a different view of living with bears.
Part Three: Letting Nature Take Its Course
Because of the one-sided information presented in documentaries of this nature, the public is given a Disney-type view of bears that can and does end in trouble. An example of this is the people who illegally feed bears in national parks. I have it from a park attendant that at times the bears don’t want the feeding to stop, and in a few cases they have climbed into the vehicles and forced the occupants to flee for their lives. Often it has been the feeding of bears that has attracted them to the roadways where they are killed by vehicles.
I spent a few weeks in the Khutzeymateen Inlet north of Prince Rupert, BC, manning the ranger station for BC Parks. This estuary is a favourite feeding spot for grizzlies because of the abundance of sedge. The Khutz became a protected area because the grizzlies were sitting ducks for hunters arriving in boats. Charlie Russell was instrumental in getting this area protected and I commend him for that.
This area is famous for viewing bears because the bears only have two options – accept the intruders or stop eating and leave. Since grizzlies are extremely hungry in late spring, they often do the latter. I don’t have a problem with viewing from boats, except for the fact that some of the viewers refuse to stay in their boats and try to approach the bears on land. And always the objective is to get close-up pictures, or to prove that man and bears can accept each other.
It is always the same story – people going to salmon spawning areas to mingle with the bears. The bears are desperate to get these fish just prior to den time so they must put up with the intruders. This does not prove that man and bears can live together. It does prove that the designation “bear expert” is often used as a licence to torment wildlife. Surely we have enough pictures of bears to go around, so why not back off and let the bears feed in peace. (photo at right courtesy National Wildlife Federation)
Although some people may want to live with grizzlies, and can do so by means of captivity and food dependency, it has been my experience that grizzlies do not want to live with people. Often back in the mountains they would get our scent and leave the area when we were between one and two kilometres distant from them.
As Grizzly Adams and others have shown throughout the years – it is easy to tame grizzly cubs, but the end result is always sorrow for the bears, one way or another. In every case I can remember where bear cubs were tamed the end result was bad news for the bears; usually the best they received was a trip to a zoo. Most had to be destroyed, and in two cases they were destroyed after they mauled children.
I also feel strongly that a bear expert should not hold yearling grizzlies in captivity when it has been established that grizzly cubs have survived alone from the age of seven months, and black bear cubs from the age of as little as five months.
I recall in 1979 when a hunter shot a mother black bear in error, saying he wasn’t aware she had cubs. When the cubs refused to leave their dead mother’s side during the following three days, we contacted Regional Wildlife Biologist Ken Sumanik in Prince George. Acting on his advice we transported the two cubs to Foreman flats and turned them over to a Mrs. Sawitsky. She often cared for injured animals, but was not a bear expert; therefore she did an intelligent thing by not confining the seven-month-old cubs. Instead she let them roam freely about their 60 hectares of land so they wouldn’t become habituated. When the first snowfall arrived about six weeks later, the cubs dug in under a cottonwood tree by the Fraser River. The following spring they emerged from the den, and after exploring the area for a few weeks, they returned to the wild.
Tomorrow Boudreau summarizes his bear experiences.
Previous Story - Next Story
Email
Print
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Del.icio.usReturn to Home
Title: In Russia, big business in the frozen wilderness.
COLLINS: Bear hunters are out to kill, paying thousands of dollars to rouse bears from hibernation and then turn them into trophies. Animal rights activists are firing back.
COLLINS: Every winter in Russia, hundreds of bear cubs starve or freeze to death after their mothers are awakened from hibernation and killed by hunters. Others are fighting back, trying to help the cubs.
CNN's Matthew Chance reports. But, first, a warning, you might find some of this video difficult to watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deep in the Russian winter, bear hunters are out to kill. Russia's rich pay thousands of dollars to trek through this frozen wilderness in search of a trophy.
Asleep inside their snow-covered dens, the bears are hibernating. So dogs are sent in to wake them. The hunters just stand back, triggers ready, and wait for the kill.
Winter den hunting isn't illegal in Russia. Thousands of bears are killed like this every year.
But at last, the consequences of provoking calls for a change in Russian law.
In the den, the unintended victims of the hunt. It was a female bear they shot. A mother whose cubs must be rescued or perish. They're pulled out one by one.
Toothless and vulnerable. Some are taken as pets or sold to zoos or circuses. Most just freeze to death.
Hunters like Moscow Businessman Igor Dvorkin say the thrill of the hunt outweighs any sympathy for the animals they kill.
IGOR DVORKIN, HUNTER (through translator): If you hit the target, you feel it for a few seconds or even minutes. After it is all over you feel devastated, just like after you've won a game or spent a night of passion with somebody you care for.
CHANCE: Professor Vanentin Pozhotnov runs an orphan bear cub rehabilitation project in remote western Russia, funded by a U.S. charity. About a dozen cubs a year are handed in by hunters. Reintroduction into the wild is the goal.
PROFESSOR VALENTIN POZHOTNOV, CONSERVATIONIST (through translator): The biggest problem with raising bears is making sure they retain a fear of humans. Animals who are scared of people can settle down in the wild quite well. But if we fail to develop this fear factor, our whole effort goes down the drain.
CHANCE: The professor's techniques have proved a success. At feeding times, staff wear bear scented overalls and gloves to hide the smell of humans. Contact is kept to a minimum. I can only speak in a whisper.
(On camera): Already this project has succeeded in returning more than 130 of these incredible animals back to the wild. That's still only a small proportion of the orphaned bear cubs that are brought here every year as a result of winter den hunting.
(Voice-over): All along the roads in this region, 300 miles from Moscow, evidence of how bears fuel the local economy. It's not just the rich who hunt. Bear skins can fetch hundreds of dollars. Bear fat is also sold. It's meant to possess healing qualities. For many Russians, hunting is their sole income.
Trekking through the forest, Professor Pozhonov's son, Sergi (ph), shows us how the cubs they've raised are now hibernating in the wild.
Russia's bear population has fallen by 30,000 in the past 15 years. This project restocks areas of Russia where bear numbers have fallen dangerously low.
Each animal is radio tagged so progress can be closely monitored.
The idea isn't to ban hunting, they say, just to make Russian hunters more sensitive to their fragile environment.
POZHOTNOV (through translator): It's obvious that we can't save all bear cubs, that would be unrealistic. Each winter in Russia there are hundreds left out in the cold. It's a huge figure. But sending people a clear message that they can return to nature something they took from it, that they should treat wildlife with respect and humanity is very important.
CHANCE: And it's a message all the more important as the popularity of bear hunting grows. And, if the animal that most symbolizes Russia to the world is to survive.
Matthew Chance, CNN, in western Russia.