As some of you know, I did my MS Thesis on bears. The emphasis was on the eating habits and home range and habitat use of "urban" bears==the bears that live on the fringe of communities. During the two years that I trapped (with local F & W) and tracked radio-collared bears (and collected feces and dried them and pulled them apart), I attended several/numerous strategy and informational meetings. A few "notes" and "facts":
1) Bears are attracted to things besides hand-outs. Fruits such as figs, avocados, berries (including those from poison oak and pyrocanthus), apples, cherries, and others. Also animal parts such as fried turkey carcasses, roadkill, dog food, fish in fish ponds,fast food containers, jars (especially mayo, catsup).
2) Local LE doesn't care. The most common question: Is my 223 ( 12 ga, 357, etc) big enough to kill a bear? Homemowner: If I see a bear in my back yard, can I go inside, get my 30-30 and kill it in self-defense?
3) Local F & W might be 50 miles away. They'll ask local LE: "is there a threat to human life, livestock, or property?" LE thinks "Gee, it's a bear and old lady Smith's poodle keeps nipping it on the butt". So he answers "Yeah, it's a threat" Warden says "well, you gotta put it down, then"
4) Use of drugs to tranquilize is strictly controlled. You must be trained (24 hr course) that includes : Federal drug laws, administration techniques (airguns, blowguns, spears, cartridge guns), antidotes, first aid, contra=indications (some drugs can't be used on certain animals; certain animals can't be tranked at certain times of the year), complications (bloat, overheating), Federal storage laws for narcotics,and dosages (based on animal size). You must pass the course test and be certified. Course must be taught by a senior veterinarian with x years experience. Then, YOU must have a prescription issued by a wildlife veterinarian and must be using it "under his supervision" (loose definition). Generally, normal performance of his duties is enough for the last. Of course, controlled substances must be controlled-reports issued. If you miss, you HAVE TO FIND the dart-you can't leave it out there. One guy I know missed an elk and spent 3 days looking for the dart.
PS: Course also includes personal safety-how DO you handle a 6x6 bull elk that's starting to come awake.
5) LE is interested in public safety, primarily, then PR. Animal care is pretty far down on the list.
Give you one example of what typically happens:
We captured a small sow. This was in a trap in someone's driveway in what had been an old-time avocado grove. She was so small, we thought she was a cub. She also had the white blaze typical of young bears (in this case, a genetic trait of female bears in that area-we didn't know that at the time) After tranking her, we examined her and saw that, from condition of her teats, she had had at least two litters before. This meant she was about 10 years old,. We had another bear prowling through the brush about 50 feet away. We originally thought it was the mother. As soon as we knew her age, we guessed it was a boar (It was July, breeding season in that area). The warden was on top of the carport with a shotgun, covering us. We decided to keep her in the trap to attract the male and my assistant was delegated to hose her off every hour or so. Remember, this is in someones driveway in a residential area.
About midnight, the boar came down and the warden tranked him while he was free (not in a trap). Didn't go down quickly, so the warden hit him again (too much testosterone?). We were using Telazol, which is very safe because you really can't overdose an animal unless you REALLY, REALLY try. We did what we had to: blood sample, pulled a tooth, treated any wounds with first aid cream, put on a collar.
We were waiting for the bear to come out from under the drug when the warden got another call. That left the F & W biologist, me, and my RA. You have to stay around to make sure the bear comes out of it. Otherwise, ravens/crows can go for the eyes, another bear, etc can come along and get into a fight with it. Because it had taken two doses to knock the bear out, it took forever to wake him up. We were throwing rocks (well, pebbles and gravel) at him, shouting, etc. It's now about dawn and the teenage girl walks out of the house to go to work. The bear is half-awake and lying partially under her car. She screams and runs back as we're yelling at her to go back inside the house. One of us had to call her boss and explain why she wasn't coming in (fortunately, she worked as receptionist for her uncle).
It's now about 8 AM. The bear is almost completely awake. The homeowner has a 10 week old Lab puppy, who has come out and is barking at the bear, who is responsive. We get them separated. The bear goes over to the fishpond and drinks about 5 gallons of water (Telazol leaves a headache and a terrible thirst, not to mention the new ear "jewelry") and rips open a 50 lb bag of puppy chow. With 50 pounds of dog food for a 10 week old puppy laying on the patio and three trees of ripe avocados, any wonder why they have bears?
We have the additional problem of crowd control on the whole neighborhood, together with all their friends, neighbors, and relatives, together with a horny, frustrated,groggy bear with a SUPER drug hangover, and a barking puppy. I have an 8 AM class, so I bail out of there. Get to a 3 hour class an hour and a half late, with the biggest cup of coffee I could find (between classes and two bears, I've been up about 48 hours). The class was taught by my Graduate Chair (major professor). He looks at me and says "You guys get another bear last night". I could only glare at him with a "year"
So, be a little understanding of what can happen.
PS: We spent 3 weeks looking for the male bear. His collar went inactive, so we thought he'd been poached. The collar was "somewhere" in a mixed patch of poison oak and blackberries. Finally, my RA looked up and it was hanging on a ladder rung *(made of rebar) about 8 feet up. It itched, so the bear was scratching and got it pulled of.
God, I loved it!
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