The Bears Who Came to Town and Would Not Go Away | Hacker News Reader

The Bears Who Came to Town and Would Not Go Away

outsideonline.com

95 pointsThevet38 comments

Sounds like the residents/town didn't do enough to dissuade bears.

I've been to Jasper, Canada, which is in the Rockies surrounded by forest, and the countermeasures they take to stop bears from coming to town are crazy. All garbage cans have special bear-proof lids, there is tons of education, etc.

And it mostly works-- some bears come, but they don't perceive the town as a source of food.

I wonder how helpful that would be. It sounds like the influx was due to a failure of their normal food sources; the bears sound like they were starving and desperate. Would they move on from the town if all the food sources were locked down? My experience growing up near bears in the western US was that they generally stayed far away from people whenever possible. The fact that they were in town at all is a sign of pretty dire straits for their food source.

I grew up in the Jasper area, and we'd have bear traps placed all around the town, in forests. The bears loved to head in to town for some easy pickings of food. Often they'd be tranquilized if they became a problem, and then moved to a new area.

In my personal opinion, I'd say they weren't necessarily starved for food but they would continue heading back to town because they were handled very carefully when encountered with a human. If they were put in a situation of harm, they'd be killed instead of being harmlessly tranquilized.

It was fairly common to wake up in the middle of the night with a bear going through your garbage. The town's are fairly small and in close proximity with the forest. I think it's less about food supply and more about constant exposure to humans, easy access, and living in close proximity.

For the most part, the bears were fairly harmless too. Any aggressive bear would be immediately killed.

Interesting that there's no mention of the normal amount of bear activity there.

This is why conservation is important, even as a selfish act. Take away bear habitat and you have safety problem to deal with. And the bear patrol tax isn't cheap!

This is eastern Russia. Acreage isn't the problem. These animals are being attracted to human settlements by food, what we call garbage. In all likelihood the bear population is higher than can be naturally supported due to the extra food being tossed at them by humans. Canada has just as many bears and has dealt with the problem through changes in our behavior. Problem bears are still often shot (far more humanely btw than in the OP) but attacks on humans are extremely rare.

The article seems to suggest there's massive illegal logging problems that caused loss of habitat and food.

I recommend you read the article. It's rather interesting and addressed your points.

Meh, you could easily just shoot them all.

How about we stick with humans get great enjoyment knowing large environmental habitats exist as our selfish act.

That's not why we do conservation. We do it because we don't want the bears and other species to become extinct. In ongoing cases of people vs large mammals, the people always win. This kind of thing can't be a long term problem. Eventually the bears will die back to a sustainable population living away from people.

> In ongoing cases of people vs large mammals, the people always win.

Except in Africa, where elephants are often an unmanageable menace to human communities.

I think a large trench around your village would be enough to stop any elephants.

Elephants eliminate African villages by eating their crops, not by destroying their houses.

Also in Africa and same with elephants. At least 20,000 were killed for ivory in 2015 and are in serious decline, as lions, rhinos and other big fauna from Africa

> This is why conservation is important, even as a selfish act. Take away bear habitat and you have safety problem to deal with.

This is not usually the case. Take New Jersey, the most densely populated US state. There are bear problems in New Jersey. But since the 1970s, while the human population has increased 20%, the bear population has exploded from less than 100 to 4,000. This indicates that the bear problems are caused not by an increase in human population, but by an increase in bear population.

Growing from a very low base of 100, mostly due to human efforts to erradicate them. It's hard to imagine that the effects of human habitation, and the environmental choices of those inhabitans does not impact the bear population. The same reason that deer and coyotes have come back, we limit hunting permits.

http://nj1015.com/510-nj-bears-killed-during-2015-hunt-offic...

Taking protectionism to the other extreme can easily get you to bear town. Monterey, California is infested with the most obnoxious deer population I have ever encountered.

http://www.osidenews.com/2015/03/01/area-attractions-blend-i...

The same reason that ... coyotes have come back, we limit hunting permits.

That depends. They've vastly increased their range, it extended into western Massachusetts in the early '80s as I recall, and in my home state of Missouri you are more than welcome to kill as many as you can (and they're challenging to hunt):

http://huntfish.mdc.mo.gov/hunting-trapping/species/coyote/c...

Hours: Coyotes may be taken all year.

Except during the daylight hours from April 1 - 17, 2016.

Notes: Coyotes, except as otherwise provided in this section, may be taken by hunting, and pelts and carcasses may be possessed, transported, and sold in any numbers throughout the year.

Special method restrictions apply during spring turkey season....

We seriously have way too many of them.

I think the nasty taste of deer has more to do with their increasing numbers than anything else other than various extremes like you note in taking them (when I was in grade school, I think, my mother said NO MORE (MULE) DEER!!! and my father switched to more tasty elk and eventually very tasty moose (as long as you don't get a really old one)).

(Side note: mere words cannot express how happy I am to have been born, raised, and now retired to a part of SW Missouri where there are absolutely no bear (to even get a sighting you have to go 2-3 counties away).)

> daylight hours from April 1 - 17, 2016.

What happens (happened?) between April 1 - 17?

It's got to be something related to the hunting season for another species. The only big one in the spring I (sort of) know about is turkeys.

So it turns out the question might actually be, what happens after April 17th? The 18th is the start of spring turkey season, so maybe this is a measure to get them a bit more complacent?

There's a big difference between limiting permit hunting on predator species vs prey species.

I get it -- it's a pain in the ass if you're a farmer and you lose animals. But the answer isn't to externalize that by supporting continued extirpation of top predators.

And yes, occasionally even a baby / teenager / adult gets killed by not being aware of their surroundings. Too bad. Think like a mountain.

Well, in the case of Missouri, coyotes are an invasive species, so presumably some of the other mechanisms beside starvation that would normally keep their numbers controlled aren't in effect.

I presume they've moved into Missouri and beyond mostly because they're filling an ecological niche we've emptied by removing species like wolves.

And I'm sorry, but I'm going to pick the side of humans every time, even though the result is messy. In either case, coyotes or wolves, it's critical to make them know their place and be scared of humans. Compare European stories about wolves facing unarmed with guns peasants to their relative historical unimportance in the US. For coyotes, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attacks_on_humans And I can attest that in Missouri they stay furtive, if not for picture cams and evidence of their depredations, and their howling at night, we wouldn't particularly know they're here.

Whereas foxes are much more tolerated, if not enthusiastically supported by people who don't keep chickens, and aren't hardly as shy. A young pair in fact took up residence right in front of my mother's house.

The Guardian article on the same has video of the bears and people involved

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/04/russian-town-b...

In Canada there are some garbage dumps that have resident bears.

That's not a nice way to refer to Ottawa.

Sadly, the first part of this article sounds like something from The Simpsons. People seem to overreact to certain threats, but ignore that household accidents kill more people than bear attacks do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkV_ztynYDM

Maybe if we were constantly living among bears, bear attacks would kill more people.

This looks like it is about a similar area (Russia's far-east tiaga) as the Tiger book by John Vaillant. Similar story though with much different results: human activity basically drove a particular tiger to very wild and dangerous behavior.

Colorado has a two strikes practice. If the bear didnt injure anybody it is captured, tagged and released hundreds of miles away. The second it is euthanized.

> "What can we say about a bear that is running? It has no cap, hat, or handkerchief, right?”

Unless his name is Paddington.

"surveyed the scene, and decided that they needed a drink." - Exploded into laughter in public transit!

>> Nikolai, an elderly pensioner, had just come out to walk his cat.

That's basically all you need to know. An large old mammal tied to a smaller mammal = bear lunch. Do not blame a carnivore for doing what carnivores do. Walk in groups. Don't leash your cat. Make some noise. Move around. Don't sit down quietly on a bench.

>> A person can be standing, gathering berries, and the bear can attack from behind. It’s easy game...

Yes it is, but I suspect the bear (which eats berries far more than meat) is also trying to intimidate a competitor. This tale is like a spearfisher complaining about sharks.

"Never walk your dog, don't go outside alone, and for God's sake don't sit on benches" is not remotely practical advice. It sucks that these people have to deal with the fallout of irresponsible clear-cutting, but you can't ask people to turn off their lives like it's no big thing.

Lol. Did you read that this bench is also right beside some unsecured dumpsters? Clearcutting isn't the problem.

>>Two bears feasted on watermelon rinds in the dumpster across from the Great Wall so many nights in a row that locals parked their cars nearby and waited for them to appear, hoping to make home movies.

Not sitting on benches near piles of food is very practical. Not walking your CAT in bear country is too.

Isn't the idea that, it wasn't bear country before that point?

That is, there weren't bears going in the town?

> Clearcutting isn't the problem.

Going from no bear problem to "a rate of up to ten per day" in a few weeks is not normal. Unless the town had been carefully securing their garbage for years and suddenly, unilaterally stopped, there is some outside factor driving bears into town.

> Not sitting on benches near piles of food is very practical.

See above. They were roaming all over the town.

> Not walking your CAT in bear country is too.

I'm sorry, your words were: "That's basically all you need to know. An large old mammal tied to a smaller mammal = bear lunch." You're saying that people shouldn't take any animal out on a leash, ever. That's not reasonable.

You're also ignoring the fact that neither the cat nor its owner were attacked. The first victim, as it happens, was walking a dog, which the bear ignored.

I never said anything about them being attacked. The fact that an old person was walking a cat so casually is evidence of a lack of bear awareness. It is evidence of a community acting in a manner that encourages bad bear behaviours. I live in bear country (BC). I see them almost every day. Seniors and others with with diminished mobility are encouraged not to walk alone wherever bears may be active. Sitting quietly is also a bad idea. People are told to make noise, to make their active presence known. Many hikers go so far as to carry "bear bells", even "bear bangers", to ensure bears don't become habituated. And bears eat cats all the time. A cat on a leash is like a popsicle on a stick to a bear.

How are you still missing the point that bears were not previously in this region that's what the entire story is about

The reverse situation is probably much more common.

I have seen some videos from one of the main bear especialist in Norway, an american that had radiotracked about 800 bears in his life. Each year a few people is atacked in scandinavia and practically all attacks are to elk hunters by a bear previously shooted (deliberately or by mistake). Often there are also some hounds involved. In the video a bear surprised eating berries charge. The man stands in position and the bear move to one side in the last moment and run away. Not much unlike a gorilla. Is a common display. European bears are smaller, so in US could be different.

The not selfie advice is relevant. Bears loathe to be tracked. If you see some bear traces walk away and don't follow it. In Spain there is a recent and very unusual case of a brown bear that charged against a man doing photos, broke his arm with a single strike of the claws, deliver some advertence "soft" bites in neck and face and then escaped. As in the other four cases registered in 25 years in Spain, the bear striked once and then tried to escape by any means. None of the five victims were killed, although some were seriously injured.

A solution could be start feeding the black bears in the forest until the next year.

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