Quote:
Originally Posted by muledriver
Literature from Eurasia was reviewed for information to test the hypothesis that hunting of brown bears (Ursus arctos) makes them more wary of humans. The results were not rigorous enough to test the hypothesis scientifically. However, the common impressions were that bears are more wary of humans where they are hunted than where they are protected and that bears remained wary in several low-density populations that had been protected for a long time. In spite of this, bears in several increasing populations that were hunted became less wary. Use of human-derived food was involved when wariness toward humans was lost and appeared to be a more important factor influencing wariness than hunting. I tentatively conclude that accessible human-derived foods for bears must be controlled to maintain the bears' wariness toward people. When this has been done, hunting may contribute to increasing bears' wariness. This subject requires that more research and scientific experiments be conducted, because people are more willing to accept wary bears.
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Good point, availability of food. There is lots of food around developed areas, garbage, crops, orchards, livestock, etc., and it is natural for bears to go where the best groceries are. Hunted or not this tells us that bear densities in suitable wilderness bear habitat are too high. Overflowing excess populations of bears tend to disperse. If bears in those areas were kept at a healthy carrying capacity there would be no reason for them to disperse into human developed areas.
Once upon a time we killed or drove them out of areas that we humans colonized and kept them from returning. We also legally hunted the bears in the remaining wilderness areas only taking a sustainable number of bears out thus keeping their numbers thin enough that they never became over capacity in those areas. Young bears search for new territories away from their moms and other dominant bears that drive them away forcing them to disperse. These young bears don't necessarily know whats over the next hill or down the valley when their looking to set up their own territory often wandering into human populated areas found themselves unwelcome, killed if they didn't turn around and get out of dodge.
Since we have stopped hunting previously hunted areas are now overflowing with grizzlies, they are dispersing into developed areas as they have nowhere else to go. Nowadays they are met with a welcome mat by many people, they are not allowed to be killed, food sources for them abound in developed agricultural and rural areas. Bears aren't driven away or killed, instead they are adapting to people, losing their fear and thriving. The problem, whether we like it or not, is apparent, bears especially grizzlies and people don't mix well, often conflict arises. Most times it doesn't end well for the bears, but as we are seeing it is becoming more common that these conflicts don't end well for people.
I have no interest in hunting grizzlies, but there are lots of hunters that would enjoy a properly managed limited hunt taking enough bears to keep numbers in check while still maintaining a healthy population of grizzlies away from developed areas before this problem gets out of hand. Unfortunately now that humans have settled the landscape we can never have the historic numbers of bears that existed before we arrived, there simply isn't room, we do not co-exist without conflict. We must provide wild places for them to roam, but they must be also remain contained in those areas. They once thrived on the prairies, they also thrived in the mountains and foothills, interior BC and coastal BC. Unfortunately there is little room for them on the prairies these days.