The Myth of Hunting Bears (Reasons 2-4)

After a "number of bear attacks" in Canada over the past couple of weeks, the Globe and Mail decided to ask its readers whether "hunting should be stepped up in the name of public safety." Presumably the editors meant bear hunting, and not an open-season on people in bear habitat, which would certainly reduce the likelihood of bear-human conflicts by keeping all but the most die-hard Rambos out of the woods, thus leaving bear habitat to the bears.

Which leaves one to wonder: Why, given the multitude of factors that lead to bear-human conflicts (and thus attacks), would the Globe default to shooting bears as a means to prevent it? Is the editorial board composed entirely of bear hunters? Is it really just an underground arm of Alberta Fish and Game? No, the more likely reason is this poll is simply a reflection of our culture's relationship to not only bears, but the entirety of nature. If a conflict develops between people and nature, the first thing to do is to transform (or kill) nature. Pine beetles, water, wolves in cattle country, they all suffer the harsh hand of man as an answer to problems that could be better solved not by trying to get nature to change her ways, but by asking Man to change his (and hers).

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that hunting "increases public safety." Presumably, one can assume the editors didn't meant to suggest that hunters should kill all the bears in Canada, thus eliminating a potential (but extremely miniscule) threat to public safety. Presumably, the intent was to suggest that hunting bears would make them more wary of humans and thus less likely to attack them.

This is the same argument made by the Alberta government, which claims that hunting grizzly bears actually improves the health of this threatened population. But this claim, like the one implicit in the Globe poll, is as weak as a bear trap made of balsa wood.

It is possible to aversively condition bears. Karelian bear dogs, rubber bullets, cracker shells and a variety of other pyrotechnic tools have been used to good effect to teach bears where they can be and where they can't. It is much like teaching a dog, only harder. But if you kill the bear during the process of aversive conditioning, it cannot learn. It cannot change its behaviour next time because there is no next time, and it cannot pass its lesson on to its cubs because dead bears don't have cubs. So the claim that "hunted populations are more wary of people and therefore more likely to avoid undesirable interactions with humans" is a non sequitur.

Some, like the Alberta government, argue that "hunting helps reduce problem bears by selecting those that are least wary and most likely to become nuisances," but there is no evidence to suggest this is true and, in fact, it likely isn't. For one, it's impossible to say what makes one bear "more likely" to become a "problem" than another, exept perhaps the bad luck to have a home range shared by people, which in Alberta (and much of Canada) is almost everywhere. To hunt and kill all bears in ths unfortunate situation would mean the end of most of Canada's bears.

Two, hunters head out into the wilderness, usually on ATVs or in trucks, looking for bears; they don't usually hunt around communities, which is where habituated bears hang out. And they're actively pursuing their quarry for the purpose of killing it, so a good hunter is just as likely to locate and track and kill a (potentially) "wary" bear as an "aggressive" one.

The claim that bear "population growth rate is potentially increased by harvest of adult males that kill and eat young grizzlies" is also without merit. The only scientific study I'm aware of, conducted (if memory serves) by renowned B.C. bear biologist Bruce McLellan, indicates the opposite, that killing mature adult male bears allows sub-adult males to take over the dead bear's home range, access bred females with cubs, and kill those cubs to stimulate her desire to breed again, this time with new male.

No, hunting simply puts more people into bear habitat, people armed with guns. This in itself is not a bad thing. Many of us enjoy spending time in bear habitat, and some of us live in bear habitat. But the more people (especially those armed with guns) in bear habitat, the more bear-human interactions there will be. And a very small percentage of those interactions will be conflicts, and an even smaller number will be attacks.

The way to increase public safety and reduce stress on bear populations has almost nothing to do with bears and everything to do with people. If we were serious about it, we'd provide bears with the undisturbed habitat they need to live, educate people about how to behave in bear habitat, and fund and implement bear-human conflict management plans for communities in bear habitat like Whistler and Canmore. It will take time and cost money, but it is the only way to do it. The question is, Do we have it in us?