OPINION
Kevin Van Tighem Canmore
If there was a community anywhere that cared about the well-being of Alberta’s grizzly population, one would think that ours would be at the top of the list.
But the echoing silence in the wake of our recent loss of four female grizzlies seems to tell a different tale.
Female grizzlies reach sexual maturity later than most animals and reproduce only every two or three years at best. Their offspring often die before maturity, especially in landscapes riddled with roads, railways and temptation.
That’s why the loss of bear 105 and her three female cubs from this valley will have profound, long-term conservation impacts. Science shows that long-distance relocations often end soon after in the death of the bears.
What is most troubling is that these bears were trapped and hauled away for the sole offence of being relaxed around people. They weren’t getting into human food or garbage, which could have made them dangerous. And they weren’t being aggressive. They were simply using natural habitats close to where we live.
Bears are no more inherently dangerous than humans. Like us, some are timid; others are assertive. Some are inquisitive; others conservative. Their individual natures, combined with their life experiences, predispose some to fear and avoid people, others to accept us as neutral, and others to actively seek us out. Bear 105 may well have preferred being close to occupied areas because experience had taught her that people are safer than the big males farther away from town who sometimes hunt and kill bear cubs.
Bears that associate us with food or danger can be dangerous. But others, like 105, are simply relaxed near us and focused on foraging in the best habitat they can find. One would hope we’d see that as a good thing, because bears need access to what remains of their best habitat. A community that identifies itself with conservation and nature should see those neutral bears as a success story, not cause for fear.
If this community is only willing to live with timid and conservative bears that avoid us, then we need to reserve a lot more wild spaces where those bears can escape our company. We aren’t doing that. We have scattered roads and development all through the best bear country. Recreational trails – both official and unauthorized – are seemingly everywhere in the Bow valley.
If, on the other hand, we were willing to live with bears that are relaxed around us, the need to protect large, undisturbed areas of bear habitat might arguably become less urgent – but we need to take serious responsibility for our own behaviour. Bears can live safely near people only if we keep food attractants and garbage out of their way, carry bear spray at all times in case of surprises, and not chase them with cameras every time they step out of the woods.
The up-side of accepting calm bears near our homes would be that those bears have a lot more more productive habitat available to them. That’s what these threatened animals need most.
Fish and Wildlife officers are dedicated professionals, but they have to implement policy. Bear conservation policy is based only partly on science: the rest is based on social values. Are we prepared to offer our wildlife managers the assurance that we can tolerate more risk, or a different definition of risk? If this community can’t insist on living with bears that are equally comfortable living near us, then every calm mother grizzly that brings her offspring into the Bow valley will eventually be trapped, hauled far away and, shortly later, dead.
If removing the best-natured bears – keeping only the frightened ones that avoid us – is the best we can do for grizzly bears, we might as well stop pretending that we really care about them and admit that we really care only about ourselves.
Kevin Van Tighem is the author of Bears SuperGuide published by Rocky Mountain Books.
