We shoot bears with rubber bullets, chase them with dogs, launch noisy bangers or flares at them and all too often, we trap them and haul them off to an unfamiliar landscape, where many of them die.
And it’s all in an effort to keep bears and us safe. In short, according to Kevin Van Tighem, author of the upcoming Bears Without Fear, published by Rocky Mountain Books, we do everything we can to ensure bears are afraid of us.
While managing bears through fear has brought us to a better place than where we were 30-some years ago when open garbage dumps and shooting bears were the norm, Van Tighem, a biologist and former superintendent of Banff National Park, said it is time to take another step forward and end the fear.
In Bears Without Fear, which will be released by Rocky Mountain Books on May 13, Van Tighem is arguing we need to move to a place of informed respect and respectful interaction in how we coexist with bears.
“The story here is if we want to move our relationship with bears to a different place than where it was in the last century we need to move away from the idea that we manage that relationship around fear,” Van Tighem said.
“Historically, we always felt if we keep bears scared of people and people scared of bears, bad things won’t happen. In a lot of cases that is true. It has taken us a long way, but where it hasn’t taken us is a place where we can live in today’s world.
“In an un-crowded world managing through fear works because there’s lots of habitat available for bears and we don’t run into them too often, but in a crowded world all those things change. There’s less habitat available to them and there’s increased encounters with people,” he said.
Instead, Van Tighem said, he wants to answer the question of what works in this scenario of decreasing habitat and an increasing number of people.
“That is really what the book is trying to say – if you are scared of bears, at best you’re depriving yourself of an experience, at worst you’re endangering yourself,” he said. “In any case it means you are predisposed to accept that (bears) need to be kept away from people. So you need to be informed about bears. You need to respect bears and then all sorts of possibilities begin to open up.”
One of those possibilities is that knowledge and respect will increase the likelihood that encounters between people and bears end well, allowing both people and bears to react without fear.
Take, for example, an encounter Van Tighem had in 1993 with a sow grizzly and her two cubs in Waterton Lakes National Park.
Common wisdom says that coming between a sow grizzly and her cubs is a sure-fire way to be mauled. Van Tighem, however, experienced otherwise.
While working for Parks Canada at Waterton, Van Tighem stopped at a roadside beaver pond to see if he could spot any trout. Intent as he was on looking for fish, he failed to notice the bears until he caught the smell of wet fur.
When he looked around, he saw the cubs less than five metres away. The mother was a little further out at about 10 m.
The sow had been eating cow parsnips. She lifted her head and, with a parsnip hanging from her mouth, stared at Van Tighem. A moment later, she lowered her head, turned her back to him and continued feeding.
“I remember thinking that everything I knew about bears told me I was dead and she spared me. She saw me next to her cubs and she didn’t see me as a threat,” he said. “There’s an example of the kind of bear we can live with, but they’re the first ones to go. That’s what I’m hoping this book will do, help to take us beyond that because we need to get beyond that in the 21st century.”
Van Tighem said we are moving in the right direction. He singled out programs such as Bow Valley WildSmart and Alberta BearSmart that work to educate people about bears and living in bear country. The bear guardian program in the national parks is another bright light.
“Rather than call in the wardens with the rubber bullets, (bear guardians) supervise the interactions, so a bear can feed in peace and doesn’t have to spend its time looking for another site. It doesn’t get another negative reaction to humans to process through its mind and the people, instead of feeling like they are the problem, are actually given the chance to bond with the bear and learn about the bear,” he said.
Another good example is the changing perspective towards closures that are giving bears the space they need in critical habitats without closing an area altogether.
He described these adaptive measures, such as Minnewanka Trail restrictions that keep mountain bikers off the trail in the peak of summer, but allow riding in spring and fall, as being “on the cusp of saying there is a way to be in bear country and be safe and minimize the risk of a dangerous and stressful reaction between you and the bear.”
“Those sorts of managed access provisions are an example of saying ‘we’ve got to try and go further, we’re going to try and have bears and people in the same place.’”
Another huge step, and one that cannot be overstated, is bear spray. If easily accessible, bear spray can go a long way to help ensure a surprise encounter ends safely.
“On those rare occasions when somebody encounters a bear at close range by surprise, things happen in a split second. That bear has to make a decision on how to react and if it has had experiences with Karelian bear dogs and rubber bullets and people harassing it, it’s going to see you as a threat,” he said.
“Whereas if it’s had encounters with people where the people have just looked and moved on, it’s going to see you as nature and that is an advantageous behaviour. Quite frankly, I’d rather not run into a scared bear that will attack you out of fear.”
Van Tighem, along with special guest Canadian naturalist and author Charlie Russell, will share ideas of how we can peacefully coexist with bears, while ensure their survival, Thursday, June 6 from 7-8:30 p.m. A book signing will follow the presentation.
