More About Bears, Black Bears this time

 

My friend, Ed, grew up on a farm north of Meadow lake, on the far northern edge of farmable land, up against the northern Saskatchewan bush country. He claims the next farm due north of theirs speaks Russian. It is also black bear country. Ed is a marathon runner and rans at least 10 km every day from when he was young. He said the wolves and bears got o know him and ignored him. Even today when he goes for a visit, he runs and it is nothing for him to see wolf packs in the bush along the road and several bears. He has had to slow down a few times because a mother and cubs were on the road ahead of him.

It was Ed got me interested in learning more about bears. He does not consider black bears dangerous. He says if you leave them alone, they leave you alone. His sister has comfortably picked berries in the same bush as a bear was feeding on them. Cartoons and ignorance have given bears a bad name.

If you run across a bear or find one in your yard, advice is to stand and face the bear directly. Slowly back away while keeping the bear in sight and wait for it to leave. Never run away from or approach him. Make yourself look as big as possible by spreading your arms or, better yet, a coat. Make as much noise as possible by yelling, banging pots and pans or using other noisemaking devices. If the bear does not leave, throw objects, wave your arms and make noise with a whistle or air horn. Prepare to use bear spray. If you are near a building or vehicle get inside as a precaution.

I have ‘Liked’ several bear pages on Facebook which is where I get the pictures I share. And where I have learned a great deal more about them. Pages include: Cool stuff by 8 Bears Forever, We Love Bears, Yellowstone Bears, Bear with Us – Centre for bear rehabilitation, education, sanctuary, and Bear Creek Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary. There are lots more if you look. Several of them post useful background information about bears, especially the sanctuary and rehab places.

The Sanctuary and Rehabilitation places are most interesting because they work directly with the bears, especially orphaned cubs, to prepare them to return to the wild. This article here has a great deal of background on the rehabilitation of orphan cubs in both Canada and USA. https://ceinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2017-The-Rehabilitation-of-black-bear-cubs-june-19-Marlene-Klepatz.pdf. Cubs are orphaned for many reasons.

Black bear cubs become orphaned when they are separated from their mother or when their mother is killed. In most cases it´s illegal to kill a female bear with cubs. But is happens again and again because it´s very difficult to see the different between a female and a male. Mother bears send their cubs often on top of trees, when they search for food or when they feel danger. A single bear does not mean that the bear has no cubs around. Mother bears are killed because of human threats. Infrastructures like streets and trains, illegal poaching, regulated and unregulated hunting and human-animal conflicts separate and kill bear mothers.

Humanity is growing, and so the space they need grows too. Habitat fragmentation (agriculture), less habitat to live and the decreasing of resources drives bears closer to humans and they go on properties and into cities to find food (for example: garbage, bird-food). As a result, human-animal conflicts occur. Bears are killed or rehomed. The cubs stay behind.

Honey farms and bee yards are a major source of human-bear conflict. Bears love honey as Winnie the Pooh will tell you. Saskatchewan’s honey industry is canola based and canola is grown in the Parkland area which is home to many black bears as there is good bush cover closely available. Most beekeepers fence their bee yards with three strand electric fence to keep the bears out. The bears have to be trained to the fence, so they know it hurts. Hanging open sardine cans from the top wire will entice the bear to touch the fence. One touch and they are trained not to do that again. If the bear is not trained, it might just run through the fence before it feels anything and then they are a danger to other bee yards. It is legal to shoot bears within one mile of a bee yard.

I have only seen a bear with cubs once years ago at Fort Carlton with a Grade Seven class on a camping trip. The bears ambled along the river bank a few hundred meters from our tents. We were thrilled and also worried as we didn’t know that the mother would not charge us for no reason, so the kids stayed close to the campsite.

Current Black Bear Range in North America

This mother bear has a litter of five cubs

The cubs as yearlings

Triplet cubs

Quads litters occur more frequently in Black Bears

 than Grizzlies judging from the number of photos posted anyway

Orphan cubs at a rehabilitation centre

Cooling off in someone's back yard