SEEMS LIKE COMMON SENSE TO ME ! By Stephen F. Stringham / President, WildWatch LLC | 1 day ago New Mexico’s bear problems have become epidemic. Conventional management isn’t sufficing. Time to take a second look at an “unholy” tactic: feeding bears. However, in the vast majority of situations, feeding bears dooms them to depredation or relocation to hunt zones. New Mexico isn’t the first place to face this problem. During the drought-induced famine of 2007, bears did millions of dollars in damage to homes in the Tahoe Basin bordering California and Nevada. Between May and August, conflict rates rose to 30 times normal. Had it continued, the rate could have risen to 50 times normal and caused an estimated $9 million more in damage before bears entered hibernation. You wouldn’t tolerate that level of risk. Neither did Tahoe residents. When government biologists in Nevada and California sat on their rumps drawing down salaries funded with your tax dollars, people called the Bear League asking for help. They immediately intensified efforts to prevent bears from getting food in towns by (a) enhancing their public education program and (b) by using fresh fruit and nuts to lure bears back into the forest. The League continued 24/7, monitoring the number of bear-human conflicts in each local community (just as they have been doing since 2003) specifically measuring how effectively feeding in forests reduced those conflicts. Over the three months of feeding, conflicts fell 54 percent below the August rate – which was 74 percent below the expected rate without diversionary feeding. The 54 percent and 74 percent figures are averages across 20 communities. In seven communities closest to feeding sites (about 2/3 mile away), conflicts fell 93 percent. Feeding bears during 2007 did not increase conflicts during following years – contrary to predictions by state biologists. Total conflicts in 2008 were 35 percent lower than in 2006 and 1-17th the amount while feeding was under way in 2007. Diversionary feeding is not a substitute for conventional management, but an additional tactic to minimize depredation caused by wildland famine. Providing bears with food and water in the Sandias might lure bears out of residential and agricultural areas back into natural habitats. … Stephen F. Stringham is an expert on bear behavior and population dynamics.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 19:02:32 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015