Outreach Is Key in Resolving Bear-Human Conflicts

[Smallie_Stalker]

News from the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department

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Fish and Game: Outreach Is Key in Resolving Bear-Human Conflicts

CONCORD, N.H. – Do you admire bears?  Want to help them?  The best way to help bears is to be responsible about keeping birdseed, trash and other attractants out of your yard or campsite, say officials at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

The topic of bears is in the news after bear complaints escalated recently in Hanover, NH, after two yearling bears were reported to have broken into a local residence. These latest bear break-ins were preceded by at least two other instances of bears being observed pushing against residence doors. The young bears are part of a local bear family that has become highly habituated to human food attractants, despite concerted efforts by the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and the Town of Hanover to increase public awareness about the importance of minimizing such temptations.

As of May 26, 2017, a decision has been made to attempt to trap and relocate the problem bears.

It is worth noting that Fish and Game and the Town of Hanover have worked together for more than a year to address what local residents and the community can do to prevent conflicts with this group of bears. These efforts have included two public meetings focused on bear conflict mitigation, multiple site visits, numerous communications and contacts, the issuing of a warning under a bear feeding rule, and the recent training of a small group of dedicated residents on hazing techniques. In addition to the Department's efforts, both Hanover town officials and the Hanover Conservancy have worked to persuade residents to remove food attractants.

To put the Hanover bear issue in context, keep in mind that bear-human conflicts are commonplace throughout New Hampshire, says Fish and Game Bear Biologist Andrew Timmins. The NH Fish and Game Department and its close working partner USDA Wildlife Services respond to hundreds of bear complaints each year. The Hanover incident has gained attention because it is unfolding in a college town "south of the Notches," rather than in central or northern New Hampshire, where such occurrences are more common. (The exception is North Country towns such as Lincoln, Franconia, Gorham and Bethlehem, with bear-friendly ordinances that ensure limited access to human-related foods by bears.)

What causes most of these conflicts?

During 2016, the biggest offender was unsecured garbage, which accounted for 38% of bear-human conflicts in New Hampshire.  Birdfeeders (25%) and unprotected chickens/poultry (23%) also contributed significantly to bear-human conflicts. "If the public would be willing to address these three common attractants, we could significantly reduce annual bear-human conflicts," says Timmins. Food attractants causing problems in the Hanover area include birdfeeders and unsecured garbage, much of which is related to student rental properties.

For the past two decades, Fish and Game and Wildlife Services have been heavily vested in an active bear education campaign designed to prevent conflicts and the unnecessary loss of bears.  This campaign has included the production and distribution of multiple bear education materials, bear abatement equipment loans, media outreach, a toll-free bear complaint phone line, public presentations, the hiring of summer bear technicians dedicated to conflict mitigation, and a huge investment of staff time and effort directed at preventing and resolving bear human conflicts.

"New Hampshire has one of the best bear-human conflict mitigation programs in the Northeast and probably the country," says Mark Ellingwood, chief of Fish and Game's Wildlife Division. "Our efforts have been particularly effective because of the Department's partnership with USDA Wildlife Services. We are one of the few Northeastern states that have stabilized bear-human conflicts."

How You Can Help Bears

You can avoid encounters with bears by taking a few simple precautions:

Stop all bird feeding by April 1 or at the onset of extended spring-like weather conditions.

Clean up any spilled birdseed and dispose of it in the trash.

Secure all garbage in airtight containers inside a garage or adequate storage area, and put garbage out on the morning of pickup, not the night before. If using a dumpster, inform your dumpster company that you need a dumpster with metal locking tops and doors that are inaccessible to bears and other wildlife.

Avoid putting meat or other food scraps in your compost pile.

Don't leave pet food dishes outside overnight.

Clean and store outdoor grills after each use.

Finally, NEVER feed bears!

Fence in all poultry and small mammals behind a woven wire fence with an outer-perimeter electric fence.

These steps will help to ensure that your backyard does not become attractive to bears and other wildlife, which is important because it prevents property damage by bears and because it keeps bears from becoming nuisance animals.

For more information on preventing conflicts with black bears, visit www.wildnh.com/wildlife/somethings-bruin.html .

If you have questions about bear-related problems, you can get advice by calling a toll-free number coordinated jointly by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department: 1-888-749-2327
(1-888-SHY-BEAR).

[flowerjohn]

A critique of this program if I may.
The number one reason why humans and bears come into contact is because humans continue to encroach upon bear habitat.
A bear is the same as a squirrel or a raccoon or any other varmint. They are all very efficient foragers and will adapt very easily to any food source offered by humans as we encroach upon the areas in which they live.
In terms of concentrations, each of these species will spread themselves throughout the environment so as to maximize their opportunities to gather food, a highly evolved form of biological population maintenance, thus relocation is not at all effective in controlling any of these populations since all other members of the population just do a lateral shift and have a bit more ground to cover.
Where are bears relocated to? A black bear can easily track several hundred miles to make its way back to its home area and in fact grizzly and polar bears roam thousands of miles in their ranges annually.
We have had many of these problems up here for years since the spring bear hunt was banned. The ban was enstated as a response to those who live in rural areas largely by choice and mostly on recreational property and who expressed the opinion that hunters should not kill the bears since it was cruel. Guess what? These same people pleaded for a spring bear hunt once they found the bears playing goldilocks in their residences, eating expensive cuts of meat off their BBQs and generally being a pain in the collective public butt!
Sad to say but there are only two ways to control human interaction with bears. Either humans retreat from the bears' habitat or cull the bear population to the extent that it is comfortable to the human population.
Yes liberal tree hugging want to be all things to all other liberals. You cannot suck and blow at the same time. If you figure out a way, call me!



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[Smallie_Stalker]

Opposing opinions are always welcome. And for the record I agree with you.

We have a similar situation to what you described. Back in the mid 90's Animal rights activists put a question on the Massachusetts ballot that severely limited trapping. suggested unreasonable limits on hunters and required at least two seats on the states Fish and Game board to go to people with no background or vested interest in the outdoors. Being a very blue state it of course passed. 

By the early 2000's these same folks who pushed for this bill suddenly found all manner of wild creatures in their backyards, sometimes eating their pets and in several instances children were attacked. Now here's the real kicker in all of this. These people would call animal control and then when animal control showed up they raised hell if the animal was put down. In several cases animal control was sued by some of these people for cruelty to animals. 

In one case in particular a little girl was attacked by a coyote in her backyard. Her family were not of the tree-hugging animal rights persuasion and her father shot and killed the coyote. She survived, but just barely. The father was arrested for discharging a firearm within city limits and lost his right to posses a firearm permanently. The little girl's medical bills were astronomical and the family did not have a lot of money so they held a fundraiser to try and get help. When a local animal rights group found out about the fundraiser they held a protest and set up a table for donations in the memory of the dead coyote with the funds to go towards animal rights campaigns. In a disgusting outcome the animal rights people earned almost 3 times as much in donations as the family did for their daughter's medical bills.

I don't think they will ever learn their lesson. To them an animal has more rights than a human, and an animal's life is more valuable than a human life. How can you reason with someone who thinks like that?

[Pacific NW Ron]

A critique of this program if I may.
The number one reason why humans and bears come into contact is because humans continue to encroach upon bear habitat.

I agree with this 100%.  We also have the same problem and most of the time it's in a new development in what was bear country.  Then when they see a bear they panic and automatically think the bear is dangerous. 
I hunt bear and I can tell you that a bear is very afraid of a human.  I believe that all bear attacks are because people get in the bears way or between the mother and her cub/s.  A bear will not attack a human just because it wants to.  A bear won't attack unless it's their only way out.
That's my thoughts on that.
Ron