When bears come a-callin'

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

By Grace Hammond

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-“Is it dead?” The receptionist at the Game & Fish headquarters had directed me to “the shop,” a gray building resembling an auto repair garage. When I walked in, I was greeted with enthusiasm by a man with a mustache and a yellow Labrador. The black bear on the floor didn’t show any enthusiasm at all.

The yearling was on its stomach, sprawled out on a bright blue, wrinkled tarp. It was “darted,” not dead. It had been taking advantage of the vast food resources at the county dump and “went down in about two minutes” when Zach Turnbull, a bear management specialist for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, tranquilized it.
This year, the department has been averaging about six calls a day to report conflicts with bears, according to Turnbull. It has euthanized around 10 bears this summer, he said, and relocated many more than that.

“I think that’s a record for them,” said Jackie Skaggs, the spokesperson for Grand Teton National Park. “If it’s not a record, it’s close to it.”

Other Game and Fish officials have estimated that bear conflicts this year have outnumbered the last five years combined.

The bear at the county dump had not been tagged before, so it was likely a “first offender.” It was tagged and tattooed with an identification number at the shop. That’s the thing about 2007; it’s not just a few bold bears dropping by the campgrounds to say “yoo-hoo” to human pals from summers past. Many bears are making their first foray into human-inhabited territory.

Weather has something to do with it. An early summer drought led to a meager harvest of high-elevation berries and white bark pine for bruins to eat. Skinnier, hungrier and more desperate bears emerged from hibernation and began to search for food at lower elevations, which humans have been quick to share, mostly through carelessness.

In Grand Teton National Park, it has been an “exceptional year for bears getting [human] food rewards,” Skaggs said. The park has issued at least 63 food violation citations and “probably thousands of warnings” this summer. In at least a few cases, citations were blatant enough to merit mandatory court appearances before the federal magistrate. 

“Blatant violations” include steaks left cooking with no owners in sight and groups who abandoned entire breakfasts on a picnic table while they went in search of photo opportunities.

Franz Camenzind of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance said that human behavior is “the controllable factor” in the bear situation this year. While agencies and government groups can lead the information effort, “it all comes down to the individual,” he said.
The Alliance would like to see legislation requiring bear-proof garbage containers for all county residents.

A bear that experiences human food for the first time will likely seek it again. Since bears cannot conduct endless raids on human living areas without consequence, preventing that first encounter is paramount.

If possible, Game and Fish will relocate a habituated bear. If relocation isn’t realistic or proves ineffective, and the bear becomes bolder, it may be shot.

Relocation works – some of the time. “If we can wean these guys quick … there’s less chance of long-term problems,” Turnbull said.

Mark Bruscino - the Game and Fish Bear Management Program supervisor, and the man with the mustache and the Labrador – said that even though the number of bear conflicts this year is higher than in the recent past, it’s probably not ushering in a long-term trend.

“Every couple years, we have a year like this,” he said.

Bruscino believes that people get complacent during “good years.” They become careless with food and trash, and end up “putting out an obstacle course of garbage cans in front of bears” and expecting them to run through it without paying the food any mind, he said.

Short-term trends in human-bear conflict are usually influenced by food availability and human behavior, Bruscino said. In the long-term, the number of conflicts depends on how many bears are in the area and how many people share the same land.
According to federal biologists, Grizzly bear population has grown 4-7 percent each year since the mid-1990s in the greater Yellowstone area. It’s now estimated that there are now more than 600 grizzlies living in the region.

Population changes can leave some bears without territory of their own. Land becomes “saturated” by other bears, according to Skaggs. When this happens, subordinate bears find themselves unable to compete. Newly independent yearlings, for example, can’t set up permanent camp in their natal area if food sources are maxed out, so they are forced to range. Black bears may also find themselves pushed out of areas that have become saturated by grizzlies. Skaggs compared saturation to a pebble dropped in a pond, with a ripple effect spreading throughout the park and outlying areas.

Bruscino noted that sows with young cubs also have trouble competing for resources. Dominant bears don’t just eat all the food, but they kill cubs from time to time, so nursing sows head to places where those bears aren’t likely to be. When dominant bears range, it isn’t typically near humans – it wouldn’t be their top choice, Bruscino said – so nursing sows can find plentiful food and little competition when they stick close to town. Jackson Hole saw this up close and personal last month when a sow and her cub spent a nice afternoon hanging out in a tree just off West Broadway.

Back at the shop, Bruscino monitored the unconscious bear’s temperature. He gave the bear a kind of physical – “See how skinny he is? Feel his ribs,” he said – to evaluate its weight, nutritional status, paws and teeth. Turnbull applied antiseptic ointment to a cut on its paw that it sustained at the dump and gave it a shot of antibiotics.

“We’ll keep it here until it can lift its head,” Bruscino said. Then, Game and Fish will release the bear, as far from humans as possible, and cross their fingers they never hear from it again.

There are seven employees, including Bruscino, in the Bear Management Program. Turnbull is the only full-time employee specific to Teton and Sublette counties now that Leon Chartrand’s job is open. (Chartrand recently resigned so he could work on his Ph.D.) Local wardens and biologists provide regular assistance to the department, and in many ways they work hand-in-hand.

Wyoming’s bear management program is recognized as the best in the country, if not in North America, said Bruscino. There aren’t a ton of bear opportunities in the U.S., so the department gets its pick of wildlife management employees who want to join the big leagues. The department’s employees have racked up a number of awards from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. They have been invited to speak at conferences as far afield as Sweden and to conduct national workshops on bear management.

Compared to other wildlife management departments that work in uncontrolled environments, this program maintains a “lower handling mortality rate than average,” Bruscino said. The professional standard dictates that handling mortality rates should stay at 4 percent or less, he said. Bruscino estimated his department’s rate at less than 1 percent.

“The worst day in bear management is when you have to euthanize an animal,” Bruscino said. “But with some bears, there are no alternatives.

“What’s really discouraging,” he continued, “is that a lot of [deaths] could have been prevented if individuals stored their attractants better. We’re just having to do the hard action that’s caused by people not acting responsibly.”

Bruscino has been in wildlife management for 27 years. He moved to Wyoming in 1977 to work in the oil fields and joined Game & Fish three years later. Turnbull joined the department about two years ago. He has been working with wildlife for about 10 years and was recruited from a wildlife management position in Oregon.

“We stole him. They want him back,” Bruscino said, grinning and raising an eyebrow.
Bruscino emphasized how dedicated his employees are to bear management. “Being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is a big sacrifice in a person’s life. You can never leave on Friday and say ‘Have a great weekend, see you Monday.’ You can’t even count on going out on a date,” he said.

The department not only responds to bear conflicts but contributes to prevention and education efforts, from fencing beehives to participating in community-oriented bear education projects like Bearwise to work on garbage storage issues.

“Our calls range from ‘Hey, can you help me find a better way to store my birdfeeder’ to this,” Bruscino said, gesturing toward the bear on the tarp.

While Grand Teton National Park and Teton County have seen high numbers of bear conflicts this year, it hasn’t been the norm across Wyoming. Gary Brown, Game and Fish wildlife supervisor for the Cody region, said it has not been a banner year for bear conflicts in his area. Al Nash, the spokesman for Yellowstone National Park, stated that YNP is experiencing a “very typical year” for bear activity, with only a handful of incidents.

“We suffered as the rest of the region did from drought for much of the year,” Nash said.

“But we’re certainly a bit more isolated here from the kind of development in and around the community of Jackson. The opportunity for that type of animal interaction in an urban setting just doesn’t exist in and around Yellowstone.”

Education backed up by enforcement has been the backbone of YNP’s bear management strategy for several years, Nash said. It took a long time, but it’s starting to become second nature for park visitors to be bear aware with their food and garbage.

“They now consider it part of the Yellowstone experience,” Nash said.  “It has certainly led to a healthier bear population and has reduced human-bear conflict.”

At the shop, Bruscino directed a loading truck toward the stirring bear.
“What bears really want from us is to be left alone,” he said, as the truck backed up to collect its freshly darted, double-tagged, tattooed, inspected and patched-up cargo. “I’m not sure that’s a reality in the modern world, but there are ways to be responsible.”

Photo courtesy of WYOMING GAME AND FISH DEPARTMENT
Bear damage

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When bears come a-callin' | Planet JH News Article: General Environment

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