 |
| . |
I made the following presentation at a Sierra Madre City Council meeting, November 12, 2013. I focused the talk on black bears although coyotes and mountain lions are of concern for residents in Sierra Madre. The many sightings of bears this past spring and summer require that we focus on bear/human issues first.
Sierra Madre is located near bear habitat and that is why we are all familiar with the many local newspaper photos and headlines showing a bear up a tree—we have provided it enough times ourselves in Sierra Madre—a bear wanders into town, is frightened and climbs a tree.
The police are called and the news media show up. Then the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (formerly Fish and Game) come to deal with a frightened animal. Tranquilized for removal, it falls to the ground. The bear is tagged, and then removed for relocation. It gets a reprieve unless it has become so habituated to our bad habits that it shows up again. A third reappearance does not bode well for the bear. At this point their removal usually ends in their being killed, as they have become a “problem” bear.
Actually, humans are the problem.
How can we do better and keep wildlife wild in a community such as Sierra Madre that is prime territory for repeated interactions between bears and humans?
And as you all know this is the black bear not the Grizzly Bear featured on our flag as our state animal. Grizzly bears were intentionally hunted to extinction in 1922 in order to protect ranchers and the cattle industry.
How we can help is by following the information in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife program called: Keep Me Wild. Where the admonition of “Feeding Wildlife is Dead Wrong” is the first statement on the brochure after the title! Keep Me Wild is a campaign for all wild animals found on line at www.keepmewild.org
We are the problem. We are feeding bears by default—by our ignorance of their eating habits. We can change our bad behavior whereas the bears cannot change theirs except to adapt more and more to our bad behavior. Once conditioned to human sources of food, bears will seek them out, creating conflicts with humans.
We are attracting bears to our neighborhoods by our bad behavior. They will not change voluntarily and unless we correct our bad practices a bear will become a nuisance to the point it will be killed to insure public safety. In order to avoid death to the bears, human food sources have to be removed.
The most dangerous occurrence to a bear and the unsuspecting public came when one adult, without cubs wandered his (or her) way across Sierra Madre, following a route from the west down from the foothills, across town from Lima to Mtn Trail and then northward towards the mountains trying to escape in a back yard on East Montecito.
Many did not know of this until they read about it in the Los Angeles Times the next day, except to note the news helicopter hovering over Sierra Madre for 3 hours, or if they saw the 6 o’clock news coverage that evening.
The bear in the tree, police and wildlife service underneath, the helicopter overhead, tranquilized and removed to a forest location … none of this is very good for the bear out for a normal day of normal activity—looking for food.
I have been asked how dangerous is it for us to have this mother bear and her two cubs in our neighborhoods. Paying attention from a far distance and letting her teach her cubs how to survive is our best reaction. Plus keeping our garbage from being one of her food choices.
Mother bears have one obligation to their offspring: to feed them and teach them to feed themselves. Cubs will stay with their mother for two years, learning from her the bad ways humans put out their garbage and when and where to find this easy food.
What will the mother bear eat, feed her cubs and teach them to look for if she can’t find her normal food of acorns, pine nuts, berries, rodents, seeds, grasses, ants and insects? There are trees along Carter Ave with claw marks where the bears have gone after insects. They will make short order of your backyard fruit. They will also eat carrion, fauns, squirrels, fish or even birds.
She will eat our garbage. We have created “GARBAGE EATING BEARS” and the mother bear has a unique way of letting the cubs know that human garbage is edible. The cubs will smell her breath and know from that introduction that an “empty” peanut butter jar or an In-N-Out Burger wrapper means lunch.
THIS IS A NUTRITIONAL DISASTER THAT GETS BOTH BEARS AND HUMANS IN TROUBLE.
For 3 weeks a year their behavior is devoted to procreation (we have to assume they eat on occasion while procreation is the main function), the other 49 weeks a year it is devoted to searching and finding food.
To help avoid bear/human conflicts and to keep bears safer in our community we need to follow these 12 steps listed in the Keep Me Wild Homeowner’s and Renter’s Guide to Living in Bear Country:
1. Garbage problems can be solved with the purchase and correct use of a bear-proof garbage container. We need to have the option of getting bear-proof containers in a variety of sizes.
2. Wait to put trash out until the morning of collection day. Many of us have started to freeze smelly meat scraps. When you put them out the morning of trash day they will not have thawed out before the trash pickup.
3. Don’t leave trash, groceries or animal feed in your car. Campers know that bears recognize the site of a cooler left in the car and even if emptied out into the bear-proof lockers at Forest Service and National Park campsites, bears will try to get into the car to see if the cooler still has food in it.
4. Clean garbage cans and deodorized them with bleach or ammonia. Even using plastic garbage sacks won’t eliminate these odors as they seep through the plastic.
5. Harvest fruit off of trees as soon as it is ripe, and promptly collect up fruit that falls.
6. Only provide bird feeders outside during November through March and always hang feeders so they are inaccessible to bears.
7. Don’t leave any scented products outside, even non-food items such a suntan lotion, insect repellent, soap or candles.
8. Keep barbecue grills clean after using.
9. Keep pet food and pets inside. Remember to lock the pet door. There was a bear in a canyon home that came inside through the pet door, waking the sleeping homeowners by rolling the pet food containers back and forth on the floor.
10. Securely block access to potential hibernation sites such as crawl spaces under decks and buildings.
11. Keep doors and windows closed and locked. Scents can lure bears inside.
12. Consider installing motion-detector alarms, electric fencing or motion-activated sprinklers.
13. Remove all food from homes and cabins that will be unoccupied for an extended period of time.
Encountering bears in bear country whether you are in your neighborhood or on a hike is probable. You need to know what to do if you encounter a bear in your yard, in your house, while you are on a walk in the neighborhood on in the wild:
STOP! Slowly back away. Other animals or wild prey will turn and run. You want to look as unlike as prey as possible.
DO NOT approach the bear. Allow the bear plenty of room to pass or withdraw.
Once you are a safe distance away, encourage the bear to leave by banging pots and pans or making other loud noises. Hiking poles are excellent noise makers as are clacking together two rocks that you should consider keeping in your pocket as you walk in bear country. You don’t want to stoop down to pick up rocks for this purpose when you should be standing as tall as possible, looking up at the bear (or mountain lion or coyote.)
One last word:
There have been no fatal black bear attacks in California to date! In one study (University of Calgary) a survey showed over 500 instances of black bears injuring people in North America in a 20-year span. 90% of them were minor, but some were fatal. Accountings of bear attacks in wilderness settings relate an accidental encounter between a hiker and a mother bear defending her cubs that may not have been in sight, or the poor judgment of a human who intentionally ventured too close.
For more information, please go to: www.keepmewild.org
http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com
