Bears head into dens; conflicts down in ’08
Plentiful berry crop kept bruins busy, experts say.
By Cory Hatch Jackson Hole, Wyo.
December 3, 2008
Bear conflicts around Jackson Hole dropped dramatically compared with last year, thanks in part to a good berry crop, according to Wyoming Game and Fish Department bear managers.
While some larger males won’t hibernate until the third week in December, 90 percent of Game and Fish’s collared bears are in their dens already, said bear management specialist Mike Boyce.
“I’ve only had one bear call in the last three weeks, and I’ve not seen any fresh bear signs during my routine travels over the last two weeks,” he said. “It definitely appears as if things are winding down for the season.”
This year, Boyce responded to 23 bear calls, and many of those were just routine sightings.
“They were fairly benign situations,” he said. “All in all, I think we had relatively few conflicts this year. A lot of that is due to the abundance of natural food sources. We had a good berry crop, and that kept the bears pretty occupied.”
Boyce relocated six grizzlies and four black bears. He said those bears were causing excessive property damage, had acquired significant food from people or were posing a threat to human safety. No bears were euthanized in the Jackson area this year.
The relatively few problems this year contrast with 2007, when Game and Fish tallied 258 black bear conflicts and nine grizzly bear conflicts. The conflicts numbered almost 100 more than the past six years combined. Nine bears had to be euthanized.
Boyce said people still need to use caution when storing food sources.
“There are still a few bears out in the field roaming around,” he said. “They’ll be where the food sources are, which right now can be gut piles, garbage, bird feeders ... that kind of thing.”
While this year held good news for bear conflicts, it was bad news for grizzly bear deaths.
Both male and female bears died in numbers that, if surpassed in the coming years, could put them back on the endangered species list.
Boyce said some of those conflicts are the byproduct of a healthy population.
“While we did have a high number of grizzly mortalities this year, it is important to note that we have a growing and expanding grizzly bear population,” he said. “Where there’s overlap between this expanding population and human activity, I think it is inevitable that we are going to experience some human conflicts.”
Leon Chartrand, executive director of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation, worked as a bear biologist for Game and Fish last year. He said a dearth of natural food last year drew bears into irrigated housing developments that could support berries. Bears then were more prone to finding garbage, birdseed or other attractants.
“The berries were really good around homes, they just weren’t good around high elevations away from people,” he said.
Chartrand said people need to make more of an effort to contact Game and Fish when they see bears in developed areas. When people don’t call, bears have more opportunities to eat human food.
“The more the public feels that they can call Game and Fish, the better off we are as a community and the better off the bear population is,” he said.
Chartrand praised Teton County commissioners for adopting regulations that will require people in bear habitat to use bear-resistant trash containers. People who live in developments at the base of the Tetons will need to start using the containers in July 2009.
Chartrand said people in Jackson Hole need to realize that bears aren’t just living in the parks.
“We live in an area that, before this place was developed, was bear habitat,” he said. “We need to live with that mentality.”
