Photos courtesy of Jill L. Ferguson
I was seated on the sandy soil among the arrowgrass and pondweed with my back against a two-foot-high bluff. I and seven new acquaintances—fellow bear-viewing tourists at Alaska’s Katmai National Park—marveled at a mama grizzly and her cub, not more than 35 yards away on the other side of a river. She grazed on the scrub, and he rolled and played, acting like the toddler he was, until, from the distance, a large male charged them. Suddenly, the mama bear grabbed her cub by the scruff, placed him on her back, and waded into the water. She swam straight toward us.
“Stay still,” our guide said.
As the sow and cub crossed the inlet toward us, the boar turned on his tail and headed back the way he came. My heart pumped at the spectacle. Male bears, extremely protective of their territory, are known to kill and eat anything that enters their turf, including their own cubs. That means mama bears have to be extra-protective parents, and I soon learned that one of the ways they do that is through us.
Nevin adds, “Bears change how they behave if they haven’t grown up with hunting.” When humans are present, he explains, females will spend more time catching fish and will let their cubs roam farther. “They don’t have to be as vigilant, because humans keep big males from the cubs,” he said. “[Parks’ and wildlife refuges’] bear-viewing periods provide a temporal refuge.”
Dr. Lana M. Ciarniello, co-chair of the Human-Bear Conflicts Expert Team of the International Association for Bear Research and Management, cites bear cubs’ 50 percent mortality rate. “[It’s] mostly from infanticide but could also be due to starvation or falling off a cliff,” she explains. Still, that’s a lot of infanticide. Male grizzlies, Ciarniello says, will kill cubs so as to mate with the females, as mating induces ovulation. “Everything is tied to reproduction.”
Ciarniello monitors bear reproduction, behavior, movement, and habitat uses year-round via remote cameras installed near Oxford Bay in British Columbia. She studies a marked trail far from any bear viewers as well as sites where bear viewing takes place. That way, she can compare natural bear behaviors to human-interactive behaviors. “As soon as visitors leave,” Ciarniello says, “bear movement spikes.” She explains that grizzlies typically rule the roost and that black bears are more nocturnal. “But when humans are introduced,” she says, “black bears come out in daylight, and grizzlies act more nocturnal. Large males are displaced, and females with cubs move in.”
That’s why Gilbert is concerned about the fact that Katmai National Park is expanding its viewing bridge and park concessions in 2017. He fears it stands to change the character of the Brooks River, “risk a crisis with the bears,” and cause “the collapse of salmon” in the area.
Of foremost importance to Gilbert, Ciarniello, and Nevin is protection of the animals. Each says responsible bear viewing starts with the tour operator. They should know the area well, have an understanding of bear biology, know the area bears’ behavior patterns, and design a tour that best suits the bears.
From there, operators should provide attendees with appropriate behavior guidelines and ensure adherence. Viewing should take place during specific windows, in specific places, with a cap to the number of bear tourists. Ciarniello points to the example set by Homalco Nation and their Bears of Bute Inlet cultural experience near Vancouver. Homalco has a 63-day bear-viewing season that runs from August 15 to October 20 this year, and permits 4,000 people—“not too many people for too long, or too often.”
Jill L. Ferguson’s articles, essays, and poems appear in the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Woman’s Day, and more. She blogs about healthy living for the Huffington Post, and writes about dogs for sniffandbarkens.com.
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