[pct-l] Too Many People

[Donna Saufley]

A couple of thoughts on this excellent post.  

I would add that while it might be better tasting, the real problem is that
human food has much higher concentrations of fat than natural forage does,
and the bears prefer it.  The bears go absolutely nuts for our food and
garbage, and once indoctrinated bears will go great distances to find the
biggest bang for their food buck. I mean, who wants grubs when you can have
Doritos?  A Fish and Game warden told me that it's pretty much impossible to
retrain an adult bear to eat natural forage when it can (and will) find its
way to our food or garbage.  This is problematic because bears eating human
food with higher fat content will produce more offspring, which exacerbates
the overpopulation problem, whereas a hungry female bear will absorb a fetus
into her own system resulting in no birth.  

Unfortunately, our "civilized" sensitivities created this messy bear
management issue.  As has been discussed on the post before, the NP rangers
of old allowed people to freely feed the bears, and it has only been in very
recent times that an effort has been made to curb the human behaviors that
have put the balance out of whack.  It may take generations of bears for the
negative patterns to disappear.  I hope I live long enough to witness the
change.

L-Rod  

-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net]
On Behalf Of Brick Robbins
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 10:28 AM
To: pct-l at backcountry.net
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Too Many People

There are several things working here:

Natural selection in bears vs natural food
Humans and their relationship with the bears
Humans and our "civilized" sensitivities.

If the number of bears exceeds the food supply, some bears, especially
the cute young ones, die of starvation. They also fight and
injure/kill one another in disputes over ranges. These are not pretty
deaths and if people killed bears with this much pain and suffering,
we would be called "inhumane" or worse.

Before there were so many humans, some bears would move out to the
margins of their ecosystems just trying to survive. They can't do that
anymore because there are housing tracts there.

Bears are really smart. As one lister once said "never underestimate
an animal that can be taught to ride a bicycle." So now, when bears
and humans interact, most of the time, the bears have more experience
dealing with the humans than the humans do with the bears, and the
bears figure out how to get what they want.

However, as backpackers, we need to realize that the vast majority of
the human/bear interactions do not happen in the backcountry, there
just aren't that many people who are willing to hike that far. Most
interaction happens in places like Yosemite Valley, car campgrounds
and the mountain towns like Mammoth Lakes. The biggest problems is
that often, the "problem bears" are relocated "away from people" to
the backcountry, where we hang out.

An even bigger problem is that in National Parks and Wilderness areas,
the bears have special status and it takes extraordinary circumstances
for humans to kill them. The bears learn they are protected, and they
get bolder. Most of the bear problems exist in these areas. There are
probably no fewer bears in the non protected areas, but there ARE
fewer encounters since the bears have learned that they are NOT
protected.

These very smart bears have learned that people are inexperienced and
have learned it is easy to obtain, really good tasting food. Once the
very smart bears learn this lesson, humans will keep having problems
with them until they learn otherwise. I think bear cannisters and bear
boxes are starting to do a pretty good job of this, since we are
training the humans how to win the fight.

The wide distribution of bear boxes in car campgrounds is a relatively
new thing, just look at how new the boxes look. The enthusiasm in
enforcement of bear cannister usage in the backcountry is eclipsed by
the enforcement of bear box usage in the car campgrounds. I repeat
that this is a NEW approach by the government officials, and they are
doing their best to train the humans.

IMHO, the bear boxes in car campgrounds, and towns like Mammoth Lakes
instituting measures to bear-proof the town trash are going to be WAY
more important than hikers carrying bear cans, which is not to say
that every little bit doesn't help.

And yes, I know it is possible for an experienced wilderness traveler
to hike in bear country without a cannister and never have a problem.
This level of experience is probably held by 10% or fewer of the
backpackers. However, the rules are made for the other 90%, and on the
times I've been in the backcountry over a weekend, I've seen that
other 90% do some REALLY STOOOPID things, so I don't have any problem
with the rules.

Personally, I don't see much of a problem with humans killing bears in
a "humane" way, especially when the bears have become aggressive and
dangerous. For every one killed that way, there is another that
doesn't have to starve to death, so there is probably a net decrease
in the suffering for all bear-kind, but an increase in the bad karma
for the people who have to be involved with the killing.

All IMHO and I know this is a difficult subject with lots of passion,
and we, as hikers, don't really have much influence over what rules
and regulations the government employees decide to make.
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