Yellowstone officials scolded for not training bears

[Passepartout]

In a comment card, a visitor to Yellowstone chided officials for not training the bears to be where tourists could see them. After all, it was an expensive trip. More here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/yellowstone-national-park-train-bears_55df2bdae4b0e7117ba902b8

Jim

 

[x3 skier]

They should come to Steamboat and hang out by dumpsters. Bears will be there sooner or later.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

When I saw the thread title and opened the thread, I was expecting that the link in the post would go to The Onion.

 

[VegasBella]

What's particularly strange/sad about this complaint was that a hiker was recently killed by a bear at Yellowstone. And then the bear was killed (basically just on principle) and her poor little cubs were sent to a zoo.

 

[shagnut]

I saw this earlier on facebook. I died laughing. shaggy

 

[DaveNV]

And after you're done training the bears, move those Deer Crossing signs to an area with less traffic. Seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFCrJleggrI

Dave

 

[x3 skier]

And after you're done training the bears, move those Deer Crossing signs to an area with less traffic. Seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFCrJleggrI

Dave

As Bill Engwald's wife once asked (according to him), "How do the deer know where to cross?"

I suppose she should have a conversation with the lady in the clip.

Cheers

 

[Ty1on]

What's particularly strange/sad about this complaint was that a hiker was recently killed by a bear at Yellowstone. And then the bear was killed (basically just on principle) and her poor little cubs were sent to a zoo.

Bears have to be put down after they attack humans, because once they show a proclivity to attack people, even in defense of their cubs, the odds go up significantly of future attacks. Park rangers hate the idea of putting them down as much as anyone else-most of them are nature lovers and have worked hard to achieve park service careers. I do wish the mother and cubs could have been sent to a zoo together......

 

[artringwald]

As Bill Engwald's wife once asked (according to him), "How do the deer know where to cross?"

I suppose she should have a conversation with the lady in the clip.

Cheers

When we saw warning signs and a roped off area around where a monk seal was napping on the beach in Hawaii, my SIL asked how the seals knew that they should stay inside the ropes.

 

[pedro47]

Sound liked this person has been watching to many Yogi the Bear cartoons.

 

[Passepartout]

Bears have to be put down after they attack humans, because once they show a proclivity to attack people, even in defense of their cubs, the odds go up significantly of future attacks. Park rangers hate the idea of putting them down as much as anyone else-most of them are nature lovers and have worked hard to achieve park service careers. I do wish the mother and cubs could have been sent to a zoo together......

It's likely that the whole sad chain of events could have been avoided if the hiker had been using well known 'bear tactics'. bells on his shoes to announce his presence, and bear spray- a kind of Mace type irritant- handy for use if he comes up on an aggressive one. He was a long time Yellowstone hand and knew the rules. He probably thought he just knew better and didn't want to appear like a greenhorn.

Yes, the bears had to be disposed of. The one who killed the hiker was put down and her cubs relocated to where they could be cared for. Grizzly bears are NOT endangered and most zoos that keep them have programs to move them around- as much for genetic viability as to 'thin the herd'. Bears breed well in captivity.

Jim

 

[VegasBella]

Bears have to be put down after they attack humans, because once they show a proclivity to attack people, even in defense of their cubs, the odds go up significantly of future attacks.

No actually that's just an assumption. There's no real proof to support the idea. Bears don't attack or kill humans often enough to really know "the odds" of attack by bears who have attacked in the past vs bears who haven't attacked humans in the past.

There is better data supporting human behaviors that influence the odds of a bear attack. For example, pepper spray has been shown to deter 90% of bear attacks, according to http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...mans-life-it-almost-always-pays-with-its-own/

From the article: "many park officials believe that the increased presence of humans, particularly humans who are uneducated or careless about dealing with grizzlies, is sparking more of these deadly confrontations. Not because bears get a 'taste for human blood' — speaking to Slate, Servheen dismissed that idea as something from 'horror stories in movies' — but because humans who get too close to bears can trigger defensive responses, and bears that are too accustomed to humans are more likely to launch an un-bear-like predatory attack."

 

[Ty1on]

No actually that's just an assumption. There's no real proof to support the idea. Bears don't attack or kill humans often enough to really know "the odds" of attack by bears who have attacked in the past vs bears who haven't attacked humans in the past.

But the assumption is an educated one. Bears learn, and this bear would have learned that humans go down so easily that there is no need to fear them at all. That, and they taste like food.

 

[VegasBella]

But the assumption is an educated one. Bears learn, and this bear would have learned that humans go down so easily that there is no need to fear them at all. That, and they taste like food.

It might seem logical and perhaps based on some educated guesses but the fact is that it's not the least bit scientific. There isn't any actual reliable data about bear attacks at all let alone good data about what factors (about the bears) influence bear attacks.

 

[MuranoJo]

^^^ My thoughts exactly.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

But the assumption is an educated one. Bears learn, and this bear would have learned that humans go down so easily that there is no need to fear them at all. That, and they taste like food.

Forty years ago, early in my professional career when I was working in the drinking water supply program that CA Dept. of Health Services, the "educated assumption" was that organic chemicals were unlikely to contaminate groundwater because of the filtering and sorption capacity of overlying soils.

Three years later I had two technicians working for me, collecting nearly 1000 well water samples over a three-month period from Redding to Chula Vista, trying to help us get a handle on how widespread was the contamination of groundwater by organic chemicals.