New Article

My latest article on the West Glacier black bear, this one encompassing the uniqueness of his life and the tragedy of his death, along with lessons we could learn about bears as a result.

https://www.thedodo.com/west-glacier-black-bear-the-life-and-death-of-a-remarkable-animal-1102998997.html

New book "The Beardude Story"

My friend Allen Piche has written and just published a book about his experiences feeding wild black bears at his home in British Columbia. When a larger than usual number of black bears were killed at a nearby lake resort for trying to obtain human foods, Allen's feeding was blamed...until all of his bears returned alive and well. I read an early copy of this book prior to publication and I can't recommend it highly enough! Well-written, well-researched, and thorough. Includes amazing insights into peacefully getting along with bears and references to some of my own writing and conclusions.



https://www.createspace.com/5325839



And here's a link to one of my earlier posts about Allen for a brief overview of his story:

http://wherethebearwalks.blogspot.com/2011/12/data-vs-dogma.html

Doug Peacock presentation at the University of Montana

I've been spending the winter in Missoula, Montana and the day I arrived here from West Glacier back in October I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation by Doug Peacock at the University of Montana. It was a great night and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet one of my primary heroes and influences. I was thrilled to discover tonight that the presentation was filmed and posted online. I've had a great time being able to relive it this evening!

Death of the West Glacier Black Bear

       The West Glacier black bear. Photo by Marcel Vrab, July 2013.

Okay, it's been waaay too long since I've updated this blog. I apologize for that. I've been meaning to post all summer but the topic at heart has been a difficult one and I've been grappling with it for awhile and trying to decide how to approach it. I feel like it's now or never.

I returned to West Glacier for the summer of 2014. I hadn't intended to but ended up doing it anyway and a large part of the reason why is because of the West Glacier black bear. I've written a lot in the past about this extraordinary animal and the mutual curiosity he and I had for each other, which you can read about in the post below this one. After the incredible experiences I had with this animal in the summer of 2013, I couldn't wait to find him again and see what would happen this time around.

I arrived in West Glacier the first week of June but didn't expect him to show that early. The morning of my first full day back, I spent 40 minutes watching a grizzly graze on dandelions outside my cabin and took it as a sign that good things were in store for the season. As June moved into July and the huckleberry and gooseberry crop bloomed, the bear still did not show and I began to worry. Twice I had very strange dreams about him: one in which I was walking the road to the old bridge when he came out of the woods, walked up to me, and put his nose in my hand and another in which he walked up to the screen door of my cabin and sat there looking in as I sat in a chair in the living room looking back at him. The sense of a great distance between us in that dream was eerie and it left me uncomfortable. Late at night I would lie in bed and listen for the sounds of his presence outside but the nights were disturbingly quiet. I began to fear the worst.

Those fears were confirmed in August when the maintenance man for the West Glacier Mercantile told me the bear had been shot the previous winter. Apparently a year-round resident loved the bear and enjoyed having him around but when he traveled out of state for a vacation and his son flew in long distance to housesit, the son panicked at the sight of the bear walking through the yard and shot him on the spot. An illegal kill, but I highly doubt any action was taken against the man, though some kind certainly should have been...at the very least a hefty fine. After receiving this news, I spent the evening sitting on the beach by the river in front of my cabin feeling sad, heartbroken, angry, and helpless when from out of nowhere a young subadult black bear walked down the beach alongside me, crossed the river, and began foraging on the far bank. This young bear had been around all summer and I had seen him once or twice but his appearance now seemed too perfect to be a coincidence. The bear I had come to know was part of a family line of black bears who have lived in the West Glacier area for decades and this youngster was no doubt one of the latest in that line, maybe even a sibling or cub of the one I had come back to find. To me, it was a sign that even though he may be gone, his spirit still lives. I wanted so badly to run back to the cabin and bring my roommates down to see the bear, but I was so overcome with emotion that it was a long time before I could pull it together enough to tear myself away from what I was seeing.

        Subadult black bear the night I learned of the West Glacier bear's death.
                                                   

In the time following, West Glacier lost all of its magic for me. The place no longer seemed alive knowing  its greatest enigma was gone. Honestly, at that point I couldn't wait to get out of there and I don't know if I could ever go back. For me, this senseless killing was a direct result of everything I had been writing against: needless fear of bears. An animal who was essentially a gentle giant slaughtered onsite just because of what he was. It angers me, it sickens me, and for a time it made me wonder if there was any point in continuing to push a message that seems meant to fall on deaf ears, but now I've redoubled my efforts and decided I can't just leave it at that. I've already started re-working my "An Unusual Friendship: The West Glacier Bear" article (see the post below) to include the circumstances of his death and what we can learn about respecting and living with bears from that. I'm thinking of also updating my book with the inclusion of these events and even writing a screenplay about a young boy being sent to Montana and befriending a wild black bear. Allowing him and his fate to speak for the future of all bears, I think, is the best way to prevent his death from being in vain and to keep him alive and forever working his unique magic.

I think now of the dreams I had about him early in the season before I ever knew of his fate - dreams that seemed to hint at his fate - and I wonder: were they really only dreams or was he there to meet me after all?

New Article Out Now

The spring 2014 edition of The Glacier Park Foundation's Inside Trail magazine is out now and it features my latest article, "An Unusual Friendship: The West Glacier Black Bear". You can also read the piece on this blog at http://www.wherethebearwalks.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-article.html

Help Save Black Bear Cubs

Orphaned black bear cubs Smokey, Bandit, and Tuliaan are currently at Fortress of the Bear in Sitka and they need your help! The Fortress has been given a deadline to complete a new habitat enclosure for the cubs by April 15th or the bears could be subject to euthanization by Alaska Fish and Game. The Fortress has started a fundraiser online to sell 100 new, original T-shirts bearing their logo to help finish the habitats. Shirts are $20.00 apiece plus the option to include a donation if you like at the link below. Please help in any way that you can and spread the word!

https://www.booster.com/blackbearhabitat?share=3951395273510237

The Minnesota DNR Declares War Against Research Bears

Some new and shocking information has come to light in the legal battle between black bear biologist Lynn Rogers and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). If you haven't kept up with the case, Lynn attained worldwide recognition for installing a webcam in a bear's den in 2010 and broadcasting the live birth of a cub all across the internet. A massive following on Facebook and the placement of several more den cams have come about in the years since...including a falling out with the DNR, who seem just a wee bit jealous to me.

The Minnesota DNR's primary concern is that Lynn gains the trust of his bears by feeding them and, with the old mantra that "a fed bear is a dead bear" still alive and well, they fear these animals could become dangerous to people. I'm not going to go too deeply into the subject of feeding since I've already done that extensively on this blog and in my book, but I will recap one very important point: the "fed bear is a dead bear" mantra was coined  by a couple of campground owners and applies more to that situation than it does to wildlife management. Bears who obtain food from campsites or roadside handouts from dozens of people never make a personal association with anyone and thus never develop a sense of respect or kinship with any one person and can become dangerous, whereas a bear fed by a specific individual makes a personal association with that person and typically does not carry that to anyone else. How else could so many people spend so much time (decades in some cases) feeding bears in their backyard without the animals ever posing a threat to them or anyone else? This is a radical notion and one not widely accepted, though it certainly should be, and this lady could benefit from learning a thing or two about it and about a bear's natural sense of curiosity: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25216729/bear-researchers-controversial-methods-trial

Lynn was denied a renewal of his permit and told to stop broadcasting his den cams online (that really sounds like jealousy) and now a court battle has begun to determine if what Lynn is trying to do could create dangerous bears. The primary testimony against him was from the woman in the above article, though her claims don't hold much water in light of this: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25275752/rogers-neighbors-deny-problems-bears

It quickly became apparent during the court proceedings that the DNR did not have as strong of a case as they had hoped. None of the department officials had ever even bothered to visit the North American Bear Center or the Wildlife Research Institute to observe firsthand what Lynn was doing, yet they seemed to have so much insight into what was "really" going on at those facilities. When it was revealed that the DNR was exaggerating the number of bear complaints - and attributing them to residents who later testified they had not made those complaints - it seemed to be the lowest point the DNR could possibly stoop to. That is, until this recent, stunning revelation: http://timberjay.com/stories/Bear-study-in-doubt,11395#comments

Lynn has lost several of his research bears to hunters over the years. Some were accidents and some appear to have been out of spite. Who can forget the eerie comments boasting of bear jerky when Hope (the cub whose online birth made headlines in 2010) was shot and killed, or the bloody radio collar that was placed in the mail after the disappearance of a research bear? But to think the Minnesota DNR is assisting hunters in deliberately targeting and killing Lynn's bears is about as sick as sick gets. The article above states that Lynn lost roughly 30 percent of his study animals this past hunting season (5.5 is the annual average) and Lynn and his assistant Sue Mansfield have found reason to believe that June, the latest radio-collared bear to be lost, was intentionally targeted. Lynn fears that this could mark the end of his research, though the court has not yet made a final ruling.

I don't think this is simply about misguided fear of bears. While it's true that old dogmas about feeding bears are still being thrown around, I think this has more to do with simple spite. The department has never been on equal footing with Lynn and they've finally taken it too far. At this link, you can find all the contact information for the Minnesota DNR: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/contact/index.html  Write to them and let them know exactly what you think about this. Show them there is no evidence indicating that Lynn's bears pose a threat to anyone and that, in fact, the opposite should be true. Probably their minds are already made up, but that doesn't mean we have to be silent about it.