Bear Feeding Ban Proposed in Connecticut - UPDATE February 25, 2016
Male Common redpoll
Male common redpoll
The following four paragraphs are from an article in today?s Hartford Courant newspaper in Connecticut. Statements by DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee recite the usual misconceptions about feeding. Beyond that, when people say ?feeding? they usually fail to distinguish between the tidbit feeding that creates problems in years of scarce food, in contrast with the intentional, substantial feeding that can lead bears out of trouble. The Commissioner apparently has not read my peer-reviewed article in Human-Wildlife Conflicts Journal Does diversionary feeding create nuisance bears and jeopardize public safety?. I saw nothing in the statements by the Commissioner that would indicate a need for a ban on feeding bears. None of the statements indicate real problems with bears and there is no mention about how abundant or scarce food has been in the woods.
My comments are in purple/bold.
"The feeding of such wildlife by the public, either intentional or inadvertent ? can reduce their fear of humans
Yes, if the bears go from house to house for bird seed and garbage. Any problems with bird feeders and garbage would not likely be reduced by a ban on feeding bears. However, if there were a few places where bears were fed substantial amounts, as in the semi-rural community I am studying, problems would likely be reduced in the surrounding couple miles, as they are here. The bears reduce their fear of humans at the feeding sites but flee from people in the woods.
and eventually lead the animals to associate humans with food," Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Robert Klee told lawmakers Wednesday.
In the woods around the community I am studying, where over a dozen households have hand-fed bears for over 50 years, hikers say they seldom see bears and have never had a problem in over 20,000 hours of hiking.
He said the number of bear-human "interactions" is on the increase in the state, resulting in more potential danger for both the animals and people.
Common redpoll flying
Common redpoll flying
But isn?t that due simply to the increase in numbers of bears and humans? Bears and people overlap there. Although many people assume that feeding creates problems, studies where feeding is substantial has shown that feeding reduces problems. What danger is the Commissioner talking about? Have there been any attacks due to feeding? I suspect not, considering that he inserted the word ?potential.? In the community I am studying, Wildlife Officials who subscribe to the usual misconceptions like to talk about potential danger and public safety issues with feeding even though there has not been an attack in the entire 50 years of feeding in this community.
Last August, a cellphone video of a hiker being approached and touched by an aggressive bear at Sessions Woods Wildlife Management Area in Burlington went viral. That animal and a second bear that charged a wildlife officer were shot to death a few days later."
The touching was a rare incident that I didn?t understand, considering that bears don?t approach hikers around here where bears are definitely fed. Was it a released captive-raised bear? We don?t know the background of the Burlington bear. No one was hurt. Did the second bear really charge the wildlife officer? A nervous bear can pounce toward a person, slam its feet on the ground and blow. That is the harmless ritualized display of a bear that feels anxiety. It means a bear is nervous and wants to talk about it and not attack. It is a behavior we have witnessed hundreds of time in my 49 years of bear research and never saw the behavior followed by an attack. Many people call that a charge. Whatever it was, it doesn?t sound like the bear made contact with the officer that shot it. There is a tendency for scared people carrying rifles to exaggerate danger. If bears were as dangerous as people say, how is it that in all my dealings with bears, including catching and holding screaming cubs in front of their mothers, startling bears, hand-feeding bears, coming near males that are mounting females, and doing about everything people say will cause bears to attack, that I?ve never had a bear come after me and hurt me? Mothers often charged when I was capturing their cubs, but not one ever touched me.
"Klee said legislation now before the General Assembly would give his agency authority to develop regulations to control the feeding of bears and coyotes on private land. He promised that regulatory power "would be used judiciously to respond to threats to the public to de-escalate issues with dangerous animals."
I don?t know how a ban on feeding could de-escalate issues with bears.
"Bears that routinely forage on human-sourced foods often develop bold or aggressive behavior toward humans," said Klee, "sometimes leading to home incursions, attacks on pets and livestock, or even direct threats to humans."
This is one of the most common misconceptions about feeding. If people believe that feeding is wrong, any misbehavior is blamed on feeding. In years when natural food is scarce due to a frost or drought, problems increase, as does occurrence of bears going house to house for bird feeders and garbage. Then the bear presence is blamed on the bird feeders and garbage rather than the scarcity of natural food as has occurred in eastern states recently. In years when natural food is scarce, substantial feeding in areas where it has been studied has been shown to draw bears away from bird feeders and garbage and reduce problems. The idea that bears develop bold or aggressive behavior toward humans where they are fed has not materialized in my study area where bears have been fed by a dozen households for over 50 years. House break-ins are very rare (I know of one in 1985), but I know of no attacks on pets, livestock, or humans and no direct threats to humans. The idea that feeding leads to break-ins is countered by the fact that a lack of feeding around Lake Tahoe in a year of severe drought and virtually no food in the woods led to dozens of house break-ins per day while residents were heeding the advice of wildlife authorities to reduce attractants. The residents took in their bird feeders. They cut down fruit-bearing trees. They were careful about their garbage. Break-ins continued. The bears had not food to go to in the woods. Common sense residents realized the problem. They air-dropped food outside the residential areas. They back-packed food into the woods. The bears followed the food. House break-ins immediately and drastically dropped. Wildlife authorities said the food would habituate and food-condition bears and make problems worse the next year. What happened? Wild food was more abundant the next year, and bear problems dropped to below average levels. It was not habituation or food-conditioning that caused the problems. It was hunger. Food fixed the hunger as described by Stringham, Stephen F. and Ann Bryant, (2015). Distance-dependent effectiveness of diversionary bear bait sites. Human?Wildlife Interactions 9(2):229?235. (click link to view pdf)
Female Common redpoll
Female common redpoll
If fed bears became aggressive toward humans, the community I have been studying for the last 20 years would not have continued feeding bears for over 50 years (started in 1961). They have experienced none of the problems predicted by Commissioner Klee. The community found a way to peacefully coexist with black bears.
In testimony before the General Assembly's environment committee, Klee noted that a black bear killed a person in New Jersey in September 2014.
There is no evidence the bear had been fed. In fact, killings by black bears have been least where they have the most interactions with people and their food. In the eastern United States, black bears intermingle with more people (including their bird feeders and garbage cans) than anywhere, yet only 4 of the ~70 killings by black bears across North America since 1900 have been in the eastern United States. Most have been in sparsely populated areas of interior Canada and Alaska.
Out the window, the flock of common redpolls has grown to over 300. They pack so closely where sunflower seed hearts are abundant that some birds can?t find a place to land. A male showed his pink breast in contrast to the streaked breast of a female.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
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