IGNORANT "BEARANOIA" COLUMN AND INTELLIGENT RESPONSE!

Bear attacks hit record high in Alaska
by Karl Vick - Aug. 17, 2008 10:01 AM
The Washington Post

EAGLE RIVER, Alaska - Most times, in Alaska, the bear eats you.

But this summer, in a record year for maulings, Devon Rees managed a draw with the grizzly that leapt onto him as he sauntered home between a stream brimming with salmon and the busiest highway in the state.

"Bear comes flying out, gets its fight on," said Rees, 18, nursing his wounds on the couch of his grandmother's trailer perhaps 60 yards from the scene of the Aug. 4 battle. Bandages covered puncture wounds on the inside of both his thighs, and blood seeped through the gauze around one elbow. His jeans lay in shreds on the floor. His left eye was puffy from the swat of a massive paw.

"She was moving around like a dog will when it's fighting," said the 5-foot-11-inch, 215-pound Rees, who had been at a friend's house until 2 a.m. watching a movie called "Never Back Down." "It was fist to claw."

In a typical year, Rees would stand out as the Anchorage area's one and only mauling victim. These days, he's just a face in a crowd of them, notable chiefly for defying expert advice that playing dead is the best way to survive after spooking a grizzly.

At least eight Alaskans have been battered by bears this year, with three maulings in five days in early August. And though no human fatalities have been recorded, the summer of the bear is testing Alaskans' carefully calibrated relationship with wildlife, an evolving attitude that differs from views in the Lower 48, where grizzlies run half as large.

"Most places in Alaska don't have a persistent problem with bear or moose, because if it's anywhere near the village, they shoot it, no questions asked," said Rick Sinnott, the Alaska Fish and Game Department biologist charged with reconciling the 350,000 humans who reside around Alaska's biggest city with the wildlife who live there, too. "It's the Last Frontier mentality: You don't tolerate any risk from wild animals."

But at least until this summer, Anchorage residents were more inclined to live and let live, many residents being from "outside" and intrigued by the sight of moose wandering through the city - as well as by the predators that stalk them.

"The joke used to be, Anchorage isn't too bad because it's only two hours from Alaska," said Sean Farley, a bear biologist with the Fish and Game Department. "The truth is, Alaska is right here. We've got bears. We got moose. We got wolves. You name it."

And this summer, a poor season for salmon has made the bears loiter longer at Anchorage streams and be less tolerant of interruption.

"If you don't get enough to eat, you get cranky," Farley said.

The first attack, on June 29, was one of the worst. Petra Davis, 15, was cycling in a marathon bike race at 1 a.m. on a trail beside a salmon stream in the city's Far North Bicentennial Park. In the darkness, with the wind whipping the cottonwood trees, she may have careened broadside into a mama grizzly. It chewed through her bike helmet, crushed her trachea and cut into her shoulder, torso, buttocks and thigh.

"She was on the ground, sitting up, bloody, her cellphone out," said Sinnott, who heard a recording of the call Davis managed to place to 911. "She was apologizing because she had a hard time talking."

She got out the word "bear." Another rider directed paramedics.

Suspicion centered on a grizzly sow with two cubs that had been the subject of a half-dozen reports in the area over a six-week period. One jogger said he discovered the sow running behind him and pulled himself forward as its jaws snapped shut an inch from his rear end.
The next attack came July 23, a few yards from the front door of the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge, 100 miles south of Anchorage. Abi Sisk, 21, had just stepped onto a trail in the 11 p.m. twilight. She was bending to look at flowers when a grizzly lunged.

"She heard growling, and all of a sudden it was on her," said Dan Michels, the lodge manager. A guest heard "what he thought was laughing," from the parking lot and saw the bear with Sisk's head in its mouth.

The beast ran off after the man ran toward it, waving his arms and shouting. Sisk, a housekeeper, survived, partially scalped and with a broken jaw. Since May, a dozen bears have been shot on the Kenai Peninsula after threatening humans.

"The idea of bears is so predominant and so much bigger than the animals themselves," said Sherry Simpson, a University of Alaska professor and author of a book on bears and humans.
Farley, the biologist, has worked with grizzlies weighing 1,000 pounds, and he laughed aloud at Rees' vainglory. For appreciating the overpowering strength of Ursus arctos horribilis, Farley recommended a video shot five days before Rees's encounter, in the same town, by a woman who at first mistook for her baby's cries the sounds of a moose being killed by a grizzly.

"They got to do something about these bears," said Scott Simpson, a shipping executive, pausing at the scene of the Rees attack and voicing an opinion heard more and more often around Anchorage. "I've been all over the backwoods here and never seen it like this. The prevalence this summer is just staggering."

The sense of crisis took hold on Aug. 8, four days after Rees's encounter, when at 5 p.m. Clivia Feliz jogged onto Rover's Run, the city park trail where Davis was attacked. She had run 800 feet when the ears of her border collie, Sky, went straight up. Two grizzly cubs were 30 feet ahead on the trail, sniffing the ground.

"I'm thinking, Where's the sow?' " Feliz said from her Anchorage hospital bed. Not seeing one, she turned and ran back down the trail. The cubs gave chase. Feliz veered into the woods, figuring that "if I disappear from sight, maybe the cubs will just forget, like kids."

"But they were still coming."

Before she saw the mother bear, she heard it, first on the trail, then crashing through the brush. Feliz, 51, lay down behind some dead trees. The cubs "blew right by me," but the sow veered her way.

"I could see her nose go up. She scented me."

The bear was on her in seconds. There was no growling or clicking of teeth. It just stared at Feliz, huffing, then lunged at her head and "chomped right down" on the arm Feliz brought up reflexively.

For a few seconds, the bear simply held her captive, pushing Feliz's head and shoulders with its paws and mouth but not biting.

"She was just staring at me," said Feliz, a massage therapist. "And I was thinking I should protect my vital organs, because if she bites me in the stomach, you know, a lot of blood there. I drew my legs up. There was another huff. She bit down, but she bit down very deliberately this time.

"I could feel the ribs cracking. I knew she had bit into something, like an organ." Four ribs snapped, partially collapsing a lung.

Her screams of pain did not faze the bear, which held her down a few more moments, then left the way the cubs had gone. Feliz waited a few minutes before staggering back to the trail, her right arm hanging useless, with a crushed brachial artery, her left arm held against her bleeding torso. Sky reappeared, and when they reached a road Feliz flagged down a passing car.
"I know about bears. I've lived here 12 years," she said. "I'm not blaming anybody else. The bear was the bear and did what bears do."

That sensibility remains common across a state where fishermen routinely carry guns.
"I don't see it any different than New York in rush hour: You just have to pay attention. Our cars just have hair and teeth," said Don Smith, a telephone technician packing a .45 along with his fly rods as he prepared to float the Russian River, not far from the Kenai Princess Lodge.
Grizzlies routinely fish the bright teal waters alongside humans in what "feels like joint custody," said Sherry Simpson, the professor.

In Anchorage, trails placed beside streams are used both by bears and by people who often forget that a city can also be part of the wild. Analyzing the DNA from fur collected from thistles and wires, Farley found that 20 different bears passed near the stream where Davis and Feliz were mauled. Radio-collar tracking indicated that when salmon are running, bears are almost always within 100 yards of the stream and, therefore, the trail.

"There's the problem of enhancing salmon streams that run through cities," said Simpson: "Ring the dinner bell."

_________________________________________________

Outside reporter needs to do homework on bears
by Craig Medred - August 30th, 2008
Anchorage Daily News/OUTDOORS

Let's not mince words here: Washington Post staff writer Karl Vick is an ursine illiterate.

This is not name calling, of which I generally disapprove, but a simple statement of fact.
Here is what Vick "reported" in the Sunday, Aug. 17 edition of one of America's great newspapers:

"EAGLE RIVER, Alaska -- Most times, in Alaska, the bear eats you."

In how many ways is this wrong?

Number one: Most times, in Alaska, bears and humans coexist without any thought to that old cliche that cautions "sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you." Generally, people and bears meet, look at each other, mutually go "oh-oh,'' and then retreat, or flee, in opposite directions. This happens thousands, possibly tens of thousands of times per year in this state.

Despite a widespread, paranoid belief that grizzlies are big, brown, hairy people-eaters, they are not. A whole business has been built around people viewing huge, wild grizzly bears along the Katmai Coast. It would have been gone long ago if the threat of those bears eating people was significant.

Number two: When bears do attack -- a rare event in and of itself -- they almost never eat anyone. They apparently don't consider us very good prey. Bears bite people, and then they flee. Most bears are like heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson, not Kiwi cannibals. Sometimes the injuries from bear bites are severe, but the flesh is usually still all there.

Some years back I was attacked by a grizzly bear. It had my ankle in its mouth when I shot it. It was biting, not eating.

When the attack happened, I was doing the most dangerous thing you can do in grizzly country -- sneaking quietly through the woods on the hunt for moose. I am confident that if I'd been making lots of noise I never would have gotten close enough to a whole family of grizzlies for things to get messy. They would have been long gone because it is the general policy of bears to avoid us.

They flee us, because they fear us. They fear us, because they have good reason.

Even the bears seem to understand that Vick got the first paragraph of his story 180 degrees wrong:

Most times, in Alaska the people eat the bear, or at least kill it.

ODDS FAVOR HUMANS

Not counting bears shot in defense of life and property or run down by cars in this state every year, humans kill 1,000 to 1,500 grizzly bears and about twice as many black bears. Most of the grizzlies become rugs or trophy mounts. Few people eat grizzly flesh; it's pretty rancid. But a good share of the 2,500 to 3,000 black bears reported taken by hunters each year are eaten as food.

Given these numbers, the odds are at least 100 times greater that people will get the bear than that the bear will get them.

Was Vick's claim to the contrary the end of the nonsense (or even if I thought he'd simply made a bad try at humor), I might have been able to restrain myself from calling him out on this story, but he goes on to hype the situation unjustifiably.

"But this summer,'' he writes, "in a record year for maulings....''

Says who?

The story doesn't say. It just throws the observation out there. I frankly don't know if the claim is true or not. There is no clearinghouse for bear maulings in Alaska.

Tom Smith, a former U.S. Geological Survey biologist here and now a professor at Brigham Young University in Utah, struggled to pull together a database on past maulings some years back. He admits he probably didn't get a perfect count on the number of Alaska attacks, but he got the best one out there.

It shows attacks averaging about 10 to 20 per year with peaks of 26 in the late 1990s. Have there been more than 26 people attacked by bears so far this year in Alaska?

If so, it's news to me.

This is, indeed, a record year for bear attacks in the Anchorage area, what with two unprecedented maulings at Far North Bicentennial Park within sight of downtown, and another at Eagle River. But Anchorage is not "Alaska," even if the half-million-acre Chugach State Park in the center of our broadly drawn "municipality" can provide a real taste of that fabled place.
I doubt, however, that Vick has any idea of the scope of the municipality or how much wilderness it includes back behind the strip-mall urban edge. Like so many Outside writers who buzz through town, he appears clueless to the scope and variety of the 49th state. I'm frankly tired of it. Some basic reporting might help some of these people, although even that doesn't appear to work for Vick.

"...The summer of the bear is testing Alaskans' carefully calibrated relationship with wildlife, an evolving attitude that differs from views in the Lower 48, where grizzlies run half as large,'' he writes.

I've lived here more than 30 years, and I have no idea what "Alaskans' carefully calibrated relationship with wildlife'' is, but that's not the problem.

MONSTER BEARS

The problem is the idea that Alaska is filled with monster bears twice the size of any elsewhere. The weight of grizzly bears in the American West is in the range of 400 to 600 pounds for males and 250 to 350 pounds for females. Interior Alaska grizzlies are about the same or slightly smaller, and the farther north you go in the state, the smaller, in general, the bears get.

The full-grown grizzly that killed Richard and Katherine Huffman on the Hula Hula River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2005 weighed only 300 pounds. Coastal Alaska bears are different. They are so much larger than Interior bears that Alaska bears were long divided into two categories -- grizzlies and coastal brown bears. That was until taxonomists finally figured out that a coastal brown bear is just a really well fed grizzly. The bears are now referred to in many circles as brown/grizzly bears.

Along the Katmai coast, big boars will indeed get to 1,200 pounds, maybe even more. Locally, here on the inland coast, a 900-pounder would be considered a big boy. That is only about a third again as large as one of those Lower 48 males. But, more importantly, weight tells the least important part of the story.

Those huge coastal grizzlies are animals that get that way by stuffing themselves with salmon. It would be an overstatement to describe these bears as "fat and happy" for most of the summer, but at least they don't come running from miles away as Interior and Arctic bears sometimes will, to check you out as a potential meal.

Let's not forget, Timothy Treadwell spent 13 summers engaging in his bear-fondling goofiness with the Katmai bears without a problem. He didn't get killed and, oddly enough, eaten until he ran into an unruly October bear -- a 28-year-old bear with broken teeth; a big, old bear needing calories to maintain its overgrown, 1,000-pound body size, a bear that scientists might describe as "food stressed."

Not to mention there's no telling what Treadwell might have done to provoke an attack. Bear biologists generally agree that if Treadwell had tried to get up close and personal with Denali National Park bears or Arctic refuge bears the way he did with Katmai bears, he wouldn't have lasted a summer.

BASIC FACTS WRONG

But I guess it could be as easy to overlook these differences among Alaska bears as it is to get other things simply confused. Vick again:

"...Don Smith, a telephone technician packing a .45 along with his fly rods as he prepared to float the Russian River, not far from the Kenai Princess Lodge.

"Grizzlies routinely fish the bright teal waters alongside humans in what 'feels like joint custody,' said Sherry Simpson, the professor."

Hmmm.

Carcass-eating bears routinely "fish" alongside anglers on the Russian but not the Kenai. The Russian, however, has crystal clear water. The teal water is in the Kenai River which runs past the Princess Lodge. The Kenai also has several places for floaters to put in and take out boats. There are no put ins or take outs on the Russian, but I guess Smith could have been dragging a boat through the Russian River Campground to the river.

I've always kind of wanted to float the Russian myself just to see the reactions of the anglers who line both banks in places.

The only thing stopping me is that I'm chicken.

The Russian is only about half-a-cast wide, and I've always feared that if you went floating through the middle of the salmon an angler or two might try to snag you in the nose with a fly or bounce a big old chunk of lead off your head.

Maybe Vick should go do this float. In his case, having a sinker bounced off his noggin might be a good thing.

More on Kamchatka Brown Bears

The Kamchatka brown bears have been hungry. (Photo: kamchatsky-krai.ru)

New York Times, July 24, 2008,

A Bear Menace in Russia, Where They Are Revered

By Michael Schwirtz

Russia’s bears have traditionally been a national symbol of pride and potency, mythologized in fairy tales and depicted in advertisements and on the flag of Russia’s top political party. They are as hallowed in Russia as the bald eagle is in the United States.

Today, however, Russia’s bears are on the attack.

Some thirty gigantic and ravenously hungry Kamchatka brown bears have already killed and eaten two men at a platinum mine in Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka region and appear to be hunting for more. People in the region have been forced to cower in their homes waiting for hunters to dispose of the animals, which can stand 10 feet tall and weigh up to 1,500 pounds.

Local officials have considered exterminating the creatures, and a group of hunters has already been dispatched to the region where most of the bears have gathered. Hunters killed at least 300 bears last year and poachers shot about 600 more illegally, the Guardian reported.
“These predators have to be destroyed,” Viktor Leushkin, a village official, told Itar-Tass. “Once they kill a human, they will do it again and again.”

The Kamchatka brown bears are massive, weighing up to 1,500 pounds, but they typically shy away from humans. Yet a sharp decline in salmon, their traditional food, due to poaching has forced them to seek out other food sources, as more and more unfortunate people have come to discover.

The wilds of Kamchatka, an ethereal region of active volcanoes and hot springs, is not the only place in Russia facing attacks by hungry bears. The Times Online reports that three people have died this year from bear attacks on near-by Sakhalin Island. Another woman was found mauled to death in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski, the capital of the Kamchatka region.

Starving Bears Eat Two Men at Russian Mines

MOSCOW — A pack of enormous bears searching for food killed and ate two men at mines in Russia's Pacific Kamchatka region and have kept hundreds of geologists and miners from reaching the mine, news agencies reported Wednesday.

A pack of up to 30 Kamchatka bears—which are similar to grizzlies—prowled around two mines of a local platinum mining company where they killed the two guards on Thursday, local officials were quoted by the Russian ITAR-Tass news agency as saying.

About 400 company workers have refused to return to the mines for fear of the bears, which stand 10 feet tall on their hind legs and weigh up to 1,500 pounds, Interfax reported.

About 10 bears have also been seen near the village of Khailino sniffing fish remains and other garbage.

Village official Viktor Leushkin was quoted by ITAR-Tass as saying that a team of hunters will be dispatched to shoot or chase off the bears.

"These predators have to be destroyed," Leushkin was quoted as saying. "Once they kill a human, they will do it again and again."

Rampant fish poaching in the Kamchatka tundra often forces the bears to seek other sources of food, such as garbage. Bears frequently attack humans in the scarcely populated peninsula region.”

________________________________________________________

The article above appeared on a news website on July 24th, 2008. It characterizes the “if it bleeds, it leads” sensationalism that is common in the media, especially when it comes to large predatory animals like grizzly/brown bears.

How dangerous are the Kamchatka brown bears? If you only read the article above, and the other half-truths spewed by the media about bears, you would think the Russian bruins are naturally inclined to include Homo sapiens on their menu. But is this really the case?

Introduction to Kamchatka

The Kamchatka Peninsula, which is located in far east Russia, is 1,250 kilometers long, with an area of about 470,000 square kilometers. Human density on the peninsula is very low (just over 400,000 people), with over half of the population dwelling in two cities. As far as its geology and ecology, it is very similar to parts of Alaska (e.g., Alaskan Peninsula), boasting many volcanoes, tundra, boreal forests, sedge meadows and large rivers running to the sea – the latter serve as spawning grounds for salmonids. There are also areas on the peninsula that yield large berry crops.

The berries and the fish are an important food source for the most noteworthy member of the Kamchatka fauna - the brown bear. This animal is the same species/subspecies as the North American brown or grizzly bear. It was once referred to as Ursus arctos piscator, but has since been lumped under the U. arctos arctos subspecies moniker.

The area has one of the largest brown bear populations on earth. Estimates of population density vary. Current figures range from 3-5 bears/ per 100 square kilometers. In 1992, it was estimated that the Kamchatka region was home to 8,000 to 10,000 brown bears (Revenko, 1992).

While part of the peninsula is now classified as a nature preserve (Kronotsky Nature Preserve), poachers have killed many bears in this area to “harvest” their gall bladders. Trophy hunters also come from all around the world, and pay big money, to legally hunt these bears. One author reported that the true giants that once roamed the area are now few and far between due to legal hunting (hunters want to shoot the biggest boars) and poaching. There are a number of other external pressures impacting the Kamchatka bear population, including agricultural development, mining and road construction.

So how Dangerous?

So, back to our original question: how dangerous is the Kamchatka brown bear? Let's look at the scientific literature and what it says about these animals. Stroganov (1969) says the following about Russia’s brown bears: “The bears in the Ussuri territory and Kamchatka are usually very peaceful, and attack humans only when wounded and not always even then.” Does this sound like the bears described in the news story above, roaming in packs, hunting humans?

The late Russian bear researcher Vitaly Nikolayenko wrote the following about Kamchatka bears, “A bear instinctively fears man... A bear has two alternatives – either run away or charge you. Most often the bear runs away. Bears prefer to avoid each other because if they choose to fight, they run the risk of injury. All bears, including dominant males, avoid humans.”

Kistchinski (1972) says of the Kamchatka bears, “The brown bears in the near-Pacific regions are very peaceable and present hardly any danger to man. Apparently, their reflex to attack an animal of their own size is not developed. Only single cases of unprovoked attacks are known (mainly by bears active in winter). During the rutting time in uninhabited areas male bears are very unwary and sometimes come up straight to man or a caravan of pack horses.”

Revenko (1994) concludes that the Kamchatka brown bear “is usually a peaceful animal.” He quantified his 270 encounters with these bears and found that 70 % of the time the bear ran off, 14 % of the time the bear watched him and then walked away, 12 % of the time they were indifferent, 3 % of the time they exhibited threat behavior and in one case a sow with cub actually attacked him after he accidentally disturbed the young bear. He lists 13 “attacks” on humans: in five cases the person was killed, in three the person was injured and in five cases, the assaulted individual sustained no injuries. In his report, he breaks the data down further: in four cases the bear was suddenly encountered at a short distance, in three cases the bear had been injured by hunters, in two cases it was a sow defending its young, in one case a bear had pursued a hunting dog which ran to its owner which the bear then attacked, and in a final case a bear entered a village and killed a man in the springtime (probably the only case where the ursid was predating on a Homo sapien).

In recent times, there have been two well documented attacks in Kamchatka. In 1997, Michio Hoshino, a well-known nature photographer, was attacked and killed by a brown bear that had been exhibiting aberrant behavior (it has broken into a cabin and a helicopter to get at human food). Although the warning signs of a potentially dangerous brown bear were there and noted, Hoshino decided that he would continue to camp in a tent in an area where the ursid had been spotted rather than slumbering in a crowded cabin with other photographers. His poor judgment cost him his life.

Vitaly Nikolayenko, the Russian naturalist mentioned above, had been studying the bears in this region for over 35 years and was killed by a large, bellicose boar that he followed into thick bushes. The brown bear cuffed the Russian ursidophile once in the head, killing him, before fleeing. Vitaly’s familiarity with bears had led to reckless behavior. Notes that Vitaly had written down during his final summer of bear observation (in 2003) told of a large male brown bear (apparently the one that killed him) that had lunged at him and jaw popped when Nikolayenko moved near. He said of this bear “He is vicious and dangerous.” Even so, he kept pressing the bear just to see if he could win it over.

So, while there is no doubt that the Kamchatka brown bear must be respected and has been implicated in attacks on human, before you believe everything said in the report above about marauding packs of brown bears in the Kamchatka mines, remember that the media see the great bear through blood covered glasses!

References:

"Кроноцкий государственный биосферный заповедник, Долина Гейзеров. Туры по Камчатке с камчатской туристической компанией". www.kamchatkatravel.net. 2008.

Kistchinski, A. A. 1972. Life History of the Brown Bear (Ursus arctos L.) in North-East Siberia. In: Bears: Their Biology and Management, Vol. 2, A Selection of Papers from the Second International Conference on Bear Research and Management, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 6-9 November 1970. IUCN Publications New Series no. 23 (1972), pp. 67-73

Revenko, I. A. 1994. Brown Bear (Ursus arctos piscator) Reaction to Humans on Kamchatka. In: Bears: Their Biology and Management, Vol. 9, Part 1: A Selection of Papers from the Ninth International Conference on Bear Research and Management, Missoula, Montana, February 23-28, 1992 (1994), pp. 107-108

YELLOWSTONE BEARS AND PARK VISITOR ETIQUETTE

This grizzly sow was out for a stroll and ended-up getting harassed by photographers. Her young cub is not visible in the photo as she has already started to retreat from the bear paparazzi. She ended-up crossing the bridge in the background. Note the asterisk and the man in the blue shirt underneath it. He no doubt had to change his undies after turning to find the bear racing towards him (he ducked behind a car which is not visible in the photo and, except for the soiled undergarments, was perfectly fine). Photo by Janine Cairns-Michael.

One year ago this week, Janine and I made our first sojourn to Yellowstone National Park (YSNP). My interest in marine animals had always taken me to tropical reefs instead of terrestrial habitats nearer my home. Since developing a keen interest in grizzly bears four years ago, I have wanted to go to Yellowstone to observe and photograph Ursus arctos. I thought it would be particular interesting to go in the spring, when grizzlies seek out and feed on the carcasses of large ungulates that were done-in by the harsh winter cold. The other thing that was appealing about May was there are fewer people sharing the park at that time.

It turned out our trip was by no means a disappointment when it came to seeing grizzlies. We observed seven grizzlies in the park over a five day period. All of these were observed while traveling the roads through the Lamar Valley and near Fishing Bridge. All of these bears were well behaved (most were hundreds of meters away and some were barely viewable with the naked eye). But while the bears exhibited good manners, some members of my own species exhibited truly appalling decorum.

While I could describe a number of infractions against Yellowstone’s wildlife, instigated by fellow park visitors, the most distressing example of stupid human behavior involved a sow with a cub-of-the-year. On our first full day at YSNP, we hired a guide (The Bearman, Kevin Sanders) to help us find grizzlies to photograph (I was especially interested in getting shots of U. arctos feeding on moribund bison or elk). While making our way over Fishing Bridge, a sow came running along a path by the river and on to the main road. Kevin was appalled when a photographer in a van pressed the female as she began to cross the bridge (that is, he drove very close behind her causing her to move more rapidly). She began to gallop along, leaving her young cub a good distance behind. (The sow also provided some unwanted thrills to a couple that were standing on the bridge, watching the water flow past!) She finally reached the other side of the bridge, at which time she reunited with her cub and they moved away from the road into a meadow. Kevin drove to the other side of the meadow and we viewed the pair from a far. They continued to run for several hundred yards after getting away from the cars and people before their pace slowed.

Kevin left us at around noon and Janine and I began searching for more potential photo subjects. We were driving through a forested area (trees on both sides of the road) when we came across the “bear paparazzi.” I pulled over to see what everyone was looking at and was appalled to find that the cars and their inhabitants had succeeded in separating the same mother grizzly and her small cub on opposite sides of the road! The mother was gone (or at least she was not in view), while the cub ran parallel to the road, some 20 or 30 yards from the mob of photographers. I was told by one of the photogs that the sow had run across the road and left the cub behind. I suggested to a section of the group that we move out of the area and let the nervous cub cross, at which people responded by glaring at me like I was from Uranus! Not a soul moved, they just kept taking photos. I decided not to be a part of this melee and jumped in the car to find Mr. Ranger (normally, YSNP rangers are on the scene anytime a grizzly is near the road and a mob coagulates around it, but in this case, there had not been enough time for the Calvary to arrive). After some time, I did find a ranger, who told me that the problem had been taken care of. After sharing my concerns about what I had just witnessed, he assured me that he had seen a lot worse!

We left Yellowstone a few days later. Upon returning home, I heard on the news about a photographer, Jim Cole, that had been mauled by a sow with cub not far from the area where the mother and its offspring had been harried by the human hoard. I have to wonder if it was not the same bear? Was this sow “on edge” due to the previous day’s incidents and had she finally had enough of the human species? Bears learn very quickly and if they have negative experiences with humans (as that sow had) it is more likely that they will behave aggressively toward a person if approached too closely.

Even so, grizzlies are remarkably tolerant. They have to be when you consider that this incident was the first bear mauling in the Park since September 2005 and that there have only been eight other bear-caused injuries to humans (most minor injuries) since 2000. In fact, the last fatality in YSNP caused by a grizzly attack was in 1986! That is amazing when you think of how many people visit YSNP (as many as 15,000 people visit the park/per day in the summer months) and how many grizzlies are now likely to be encountered by guests, at least in some portions of the park, during certain times of the year. Throw into the mix people that are willing to do anything to get a good photo and you have a recipe for disaster, at least you would if the bears were not rather indulgent creatures.

Copyright (2008) Scott W. Michael

AGGRESSION AND THE CONTEMPORARY GRIZZLY

A sow grazes along with her cub (there are two other spring cubs that are not in the photo), moving within two meters of our group of six photographers. This is what can be when grizzlies do not feel threatened by Homo sapiens. Photo by Scott W. Michael.

Is the contemporary grizzly the same beast described by Dr. William T. Hornaday and John M. Holzworth in my bear blog on May 17th (click here to review)? I would suggest that the answer to this question is yes and no. The behavior of bears towards people is greatly impacted by how the latter treats the former. If you are familiar with bear intelligence, this should not surprise you. These animals learn quickly and negative reinforcement is a good teacher. If they have had bad experiences with the human species they will behave accordingly. This usually means giving people an even wider berth.

Holzworth wrote, “Contact with man has not changed the bear from a savage and aggressive animal; contact with man has added considerable, however, to his native caution.” Likewise, Theodore Roosevelt states “Constant contact with rifle carrying hunters, for a period extending over many generations of bear life, has taught the grizzly by bitter experience that man is his undoubted overlord, as far as fighting goes; and this knowledge has become a hereditary characteristic.”

But what about in the lower 48 States where the grizzly has been protected for decades? Is the bear still as cautious as it was when it was regularly hunted? I would propose that few grizzlies that roam the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and its adjacent environs are still impacted in negative ways by man. Bears are regularly hazed, if they become nuisances by regularly approaching too closely to camping areas or trails that are heavily utilized by hikers. For many years, the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife has attempted to discourage close contact between bear and people. And for good reason – our species often behaves inappropriately when interacting with other animal neighbors. There are incredible stories of mothers attempting to put their children on the backs of human-conditioned black bears or eagerly sharing their sack lunch with a nearby bruin. Food conditioned bears can be very dangerous. As a result, the Parks department and bear advocates constantly chant the “fed bear is a dead bear” mantra. But, many people choose not to listen and, as a result, directly negatively impact bear behavior.

Because of irresponsible people, the Feds have apparently decided it is best for bears and Homo sapiens to try and restrict contact between the two. This is done by shooting line-crossing (“bad”) bears with bean bags, rubber bullets or pyrotechnics. Grizzlies are also tranquilized and relocated. I have been told that during this process the bear is well aware of its surroundings. It sees the people as they lift and weigh it, as it is tagged or collared and slid it into the holding cage. It is simply paralyzed. It sees and smells “the aggressor” (people) and is well aware that humans are responsible for its discomfort. It views them as foe, not as friend (or even indifferently as it might view a rock or tree). Bears have amazing memories. In fact, the parks service is counting on the bear to remember. When they haze a bear, they assume that the problem bruin will remember the negative encounter which will dissuade it from returning to that location. (There is one thing that can overcome the bear’s desire to avoid pain and that is its desire to eat - even hazed bears will return to an area if they found easy pickings.)

While grizzlies in the lower 48 may not deal with hunters (this may change soon since the grizzly is no longer considered a threatened species), they do deal with humans that sometimes inflict pain and discomfort.

Now consider this question: which sow, with spring cubs in tow, is more likely to attack a hiker that stumbles across it and its family: one that has been hazed by humans or one where all of its experiences with humans have not been positive or negative (i.e., neutral)? It seems logical that the bear that has had threatening encounters with humans, is more dangerous than the one where human encounters have been neutral (no positive or negative stimulus). The hazed sow is more likely to look at humans as a threat to her progeny and is thus more likely to engage in a pre-emptive strike if she should suddenly be faced with a Homo sapien.

You only have to go to Katmai National Park to see how brown bears react to “neutral” human observers. In this ursid Shangri-La, grizzlies have few if any negative experiences with the Homo sapiens that move about the landscape during the summer months. Here sows with young cubs regularly approach to within 4 to 6 meters of groups of photographers without exhibiting any aggression at all. I have seen family units (consisting of a sow and one to three spring cubs) slowly move past our stationary group as mother bruin browsed on Carex “grass” or dug clams from the intertidal flats (see photos above). The female may have looked up at us as she chomped on a sedge salad, but exhibited no concern at all that her cubs were within spitting distance of humans. You would never (or it would be very unlikely to) have such an experience in a place like Yellowstone, where the relationship between bear and people is strained.

Copyright (2008) Scott W. Michael

SO HOW DANGEROUS IS THE GRIZZLY?

Surely the people in repose behind this large, scarred male grizzly should be running for their lives? Stop scratching your head buddy, you're about to get eaten by a grizzly! Or is he? Photo by Scott Michael.

In the last few bear posts I have described why the grizzly has had a harder time living side-by-side with Homo sapiens than its cousin U. americanus. We discussed how the grizzly evolved in a rough neighborhood and that by being bellicose, this bear ensured its survival. So, grizzlies are potentially more dangerous than black bears because of the behavioral baggage they have carried with them through the years - but really, how dangerous are grizzly bears to our species?

While the grizzly bear is potentially more dangerous than its kin, the actual likelihood that you will become the victim of this often misunderstood beast, even if you spend lots of time in grizzly country, is very slim. But how can that be? Many non-bear devotees (which included me at one time) believe your chances of surviving a wild grizzly encounter (that is, running into a grizzly on its turf) is almost nil and if you do live through the experience you will bear the emotional and physical scars for life. Much of this is due to the contemporary media. How many times have you seen a show on one of the many nature-oriented TV stations that concentrate on those rare bad encounters between bear and human. (Does Grizzly Man ring a bell?) The old adage “if it bleeds, it leads” certainly has been applied to exploit the grizzly.

This type of sensationalist reporting is not new. You only have to look at the stories of killer bears that permeated the literature of the late-19th and early 20th-centuries. But not all the naturalists and outdoorsman of the time were bellowing this same warning. Some went against the flow. For example, consider the writings of zoologist Dr. William T. Hornaday. In 1927, he wrote the following about the grizzly’s character.

“I have made many observations on the temper of the grizzly bear, and am convinced that naturally the disposition of this reportedly savage beast is rather peaceful and good-natured. At the same time, however, no animal is more prompt to resent an affront or injury, or punish and offender. The grizzly temper is defensive, not aggressive; and unless the animal is cornered, or thinks he is cornered, he always flees from man.”

Much of the grizzly’s bad reputation was inspired by the tales disseminated by Indian and European hunters. They found that the mighty bear was indeed ferocious when it had been hit with a slug, peppered with buckshot or pierced by an arrow. But can you blame the animal for defending its life against an aggressor? Such was also the case with Lewis and Clark’s expedition. The majority of their bad encounters with grizzlies were bears that had been maimed by their relatively light caliber weapons.

John M. Holzworth speaks to the truth and legend behind the grizzly’s ferocity. He was not a neophyte when it came to the behavior of the great bear. He had spent lots of time with brown bears between approximately 1915 and 1930. He reports having seen over 250 individual grizzlies in the wild (both in Alaska and the lower 48 states) and he photographed many of these at close range. He concluded the following about the grizzly’s undeserved reputation in his book The Wild Grizzlies of Alaska:

“The big bears… are fighting machines of the first order… Together with his character as a fighter was soon added his reputation for ferociousness and proneness to attack beast and man. But is his desire to fight in self-defense is not justifiable? It is a far different thing from going out to attack people who are not molesting him. The big bear’s criminal offense, apparently, is his effectiveness in defending himself.”

Thus, these pioneers of bear observation conclude that while grizzlies will fight more ferociously than any other animal if they or their offspring are in danger, they are more likely to avoid people than attack them. More on grizzly aggression in my next bear post!

Copyright (2008) Scott W. Michael

GRIZZLY AGGRESSIVENESS: HONED BY EVOLUTION

The potential aggressiveness of the female grizzly helps ensure the survival of her young. A female with older offspring is shown here. Photo by Janine Cairns-Michael.

So why is the grizzly a more bellicose bear? It is instructive to look back in time and examine the “neighborhood” that the grizzly bear species “grew-up” in. The fossil record indicates that the first grizzlies were found in North America towards the end of the Pleistocene epoch (geologists tell us this epoch ended about 11,550 years ago, spanned about 1.8 million years and covered the earth’s most recent period of repeated glaciations). The receding glaciers left luxuriant grasslands in their wake that were home to numerous herbivores, like bison, mammoth and yak. Where there are herbivores, there will also be great predators to cull the herds. Such was the case in the Pleistocene and the grizzly was one of these predators. But this was a rougher neighborhood than the modern day grizzly inhabits. There were massive saber-toothed cats, dire wolves and a behemoth of a bear known as the giant short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) – this was a massive creature that is proposed to reach a weight of 2,000 pounds.

While the grizzly foraged in the open grasslands, usually adjacent to forested areas, the black bear was (and still is) a resident of the woodlands - a habitat that is critical for the survival of their young. A black bear cub can climb trees days after leaving the maternal den. By scurrying up trees, neonates are able to elude most predators. In many cases, the mother black bear will climb up the tree behind her young or may remain at the base of the tree to dissuade a potential threat from pursuing her offspring any further. Because of their arboreal abilities, momma black bears rarely have to fight off the enemies of their cubs.

Now consider the grizzly. This species is not an adept climber. Even if they were, spending time in the open grassland habitats preclude the likelihood they are going to be able to out climb an adversary. Therefore, in order for the grizzly to survive and protect its vulnerable young in this more exposed Pleistocene ecosystem, it was the female’s aggressiveness that determined whether her offspring survived or not. Those mother grizzlies that turned into a raging ball of fury when their young were threatened passed more of their genes (including their aggressive inclinations) into the next generation. If she had a disposition more like that of a black bear sow, her young would not last long on this hostile, unforgiving community.

Natural selection has apparently honed the female grizzly into a more volatile creature – unfortunately, when it comes to getting along with H. sapiens their defensiveness is a big strike against them. While a black bear sow with young of the year is more likely to run for cover when encountering a human hiker, a mother grizzly is more predisposed to initiate a preemptive strike (that is, take out the potential threat before that threat can harm her cubs).

Male grizzlies can also be aggressive toward people, but usually only when they are taken by surprise. If a grizzly (boar or sow) knows your coming, more often than not, they will vacate the area in order to avoid contact with their most formidable rival - man. But if the boar is suddenly face-to-face with a human, it may do as the female with cubs does; that is, take out the menace to prevent harm to itself. That said, in most cases, a surprised bear will simply bluff charge, hoping that intimidation will be enough to prevent the threat from attacking or run away. On rare occasions, usually when the person behaves inappropriately, the bear may make contact.

Many grizzly attacks can also be attributed to defense of a food source. The script for these episodes usually goes as follows: unknowing human stumbles onto a food cache (usually the carcass of a large animal), grizzly that is resting nearby guarding its prize, or feeding on it, attempts to drive off potential competitor (said human). Bear bites and slaps unsuspecting interloper around a few times and returns to its post. A subsequent assault may occur if the human does not behave appropriately (e.g., gets up attempts to flee, fights with the bear). In most cases, the curl up and “kiss your ass goodbye maneuver” (that is, play dead) is the most appropriate defensive strategy in these situations.

It was one of a family of grizzlies that were defending their food that mauled a jogger, 54-year old Dennis VanDenbos, around Jackson Hole last summer (2007). Janine and I encountered this ursid family unit (a sow with three larger offspring) in the willows along the road early one morning last spring. The family had been hanging around in this area, to the delight of many tourists, for a long time and had not been implicated in any aggression towards human observers. But this morning, the 350-pound sow, along with her cubs, were feeding on an elk carcass, when the unsuspecting Mr. VanDenbos stumbled across the bruin bunch and their freshly-killed ungulate prize. When confronted by the bears, VanDenbos yelled at the bears and when that didn’t work, he hit the ground and played dead. One of the bears ran forward and bit and clawed the man (for more on this story click here).

It may be surprising to some readers that grizzly attacks rarely have a predatory component. Of all the serious human-grizzly conflicts that have occurred in Alaska, only 1 % of these attacks ended in the victim being fed upon. In fact, the majority of attacks (about 88 %) were of short duration, lasting no longer than 60 seconds. The typical encounter is typically fast and furious.

While black bear attacks may be less frequent than those inflicted by grizzlies, bear biologist Dr. Stephen Herero has documented U. americanus assaults are often motivated by predation. If the black bear presses home an attack, it is more likely an attempt to eat you than defend progeny or a resource. In fact, Dr. Herero recommends fighting, tooth and nail, against a marauding black bear, not playing possum. In the last couple years, there were two cases of black bears preying on humans: one case in Utah (click here for more) when a black bear killed a 11-year old boy (2007), and one case in Tennessee, where this species killed a 6-year old (2006) (click here for more).

So how dangerous are bears, especially grizzlies? We will investigate this in the next ursid post.

Copyright (2008) Scott W. Michael