Airwolf
March 3, 2003, 12:42 PM
Time to arm bears?
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/5302717.htm
Park hopes to prevent repeat of people attacking bears
Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - With spring approaching, wildlife officials are preparing for the inevitable interactions between people and the bears that roam the Southern Appalachian woods after emerging from hibernation.
But officials with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park seem just as concerned that people could harm the bears as the other way around.
Bear-bashing broke out in the park last summer as tourists poked, prodded, attacked and wrestled prey away from black bears. It's a string of incidents that concerned biologists who see rising conflicts between people and bears in the mountain areas coveted by both.
"I don't recall bears getting beat up before," said park biologist Bill Stiver. "Usually, it's the opposite."
In one of last summer's incidents, concerned tourists gathered as a young bear attacked a newborn fawn.
Witnesses said one enraged man kicked and stomped the bear in an effort to make it release the deer, then picked up and threw the 50-pound bear.
The injured fawn had to be euthanized, and the tourist was fined and banned from the park for a year.
A few days later, about 50 tourists gathered around a yearling bear trying to catch a fawn. One threw baseball-sized rocks at the bear until a biologist in the area intervened.
In July, several young boys chased a small bear. One tried to pick the animal up and was lightly bitten on the hand.
The same bear ran afoul of more people later that day. Several people tried to provoke the bear by poking it with a stick.
"One guy had a knife in one hand and a stick in another, and his buddies were videotaping it," Stiver said.
Most often, interactions occur as bears start raiding garbage cans, dog food bowls and bird feeders, said Mike Carraway, a N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission biologist in Waynesville.
That usually happens, he said, because people encourage bad behavior by intentionally feeding the bears in their back yards. Yearling bears, hungry and wandering after being kicked out of the family unit, are the usual culprits.
Many associate people with food, leading to more interaction.
"Bears just get too tame," Carraway said. "We have hundreds of these types of incidents each year."
An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 bears roam the North Carolina mountains, despite hunts that kill 300 to 500 bears a year. But developed areas, where problems are most frequent, usually don't allow hunting.
Carraway traces the increasing complaints to the new housing developments rising across bear territory.
The park captured 19 nuisance bears - of the 1,700 that roam its half-million acres in North Carolina and Tennessee - last year. Cars hit four bears, killing three.
The park's first fatal attack by a bear occurred in 2000, when a female and her yearling cub killed a female hiker.
This summer, park rangers plan to use student interns to keep tourists a safe distance from bears. They also use noisemakers to chase bears from campgrounds and bear-proof trash cans.
"The key to protecting wildlife in the park," Stiver said, "is basically to keep them afraid of people."
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/5302717.htm
Park hopes to prevent repeat of people attacking bears
Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - With spring approaching, wildlife officials are preparing for the inevitable interactions between people and the bears that roam the Southern Appalachian woods after emerging from hibernation.
But officials with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park seem just as concerned that people could harm the bears as the other way around.
Bear-bashing broke out in the park last summer as tourists poked, prodded, attacked and wrestled prey away from black bears. It's a string of incidents that concerned biologists who see rising conflicts between people and bears in the mountain areas coveted by both.
"I don't recall bears getting beat up before," said park biologist Bill Stiver. "Usually, it's the opposite."
In one of last summer's incidents, concerned tourists gathered as a young bear attacked a newborn fawn.
Witnesses said one enraged man kicked and stomped the bear in an effort to make it release the deer, then picked up and threw the 50-pound bear.
The injured fawn had to be euthanized, and the tourist was fined and banned from the park for a year.
A few days later, about 50 tourists gathered around a yearling bear trying to catch a fawn. One threw baseball-sized rocks at the bear until a biologist in the area intervened.
In July, several young boys chased a small bear. One tried to pick the animal up and was lightly bitten on the hand.
The same bear ran afoul of more people later that day. Several people tried to provoke the bear by poking it with a stick.
"One guy had a knife in one hand and a stick in another, and his buddies were videotaping it," Stiver said.
Most often, interactions occur as bears start raiding garbage cans, dog food bowls and bird feeders, said Mike Carraway, a N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission biologist in Waynesville.
That usually happens, he said, because people encourage bad behavior by intentionally feeding the bears in their back yards. Yearling bears, hungry and wandering after being kicked out of the family unit, are the usual culprits.
Many associate people with food, leading to more interaction.
"Bears just get too tame," Carraway said. "We have hundreds of these types of incidents each year."
An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 bears roam the North Carolina mountains, despite hunts that kill 300 to 500 bears a year. But developed areas, where problems are most frequent, usually don't allow hunting.
Carraway traces the increasing complaints to the new housing developments rising across bear territory.
The park captured 19 nuisance bears - of the 1,700 that roam its half-million acres in North Carolina and Tennessee - last year. Cars hit four bears, killing three.
The park's first fatal attack by a bear occurred in 2000, when a female and her yearling cub killed a female hiker.
This summer, park rangers plan to use student interns to keep tourists a safe distance from bears. They also use noisemakers to chase bears from campgrounds and bear-proof trash cans.
"The key to protecting wildlife in the park," Stiver said, "is basically to keep them afraid of people."