Another grizzly attack here in Teton County

slick

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Why do elk in non hunting areas do their thing around people with no regard? While their truly wild counter parts that live in areas they get shot, are much more skittish? It is a conditioning effect. Momma teaches young ones to fear humans where they can be killed. Just like momma's in preserves teach their young ones its ok to feed 10 yards from tourists with no fear. To say that same conditioning won't apply to a Grizzly is just not giving the bears much credit.







I know, I know, I'm just a dumb easterner that has no idea how the west works. But, I ain't that dumb and, neither is the grizzly bear.

Let’s compare apples to oranges. That sounds like fun. First off. Elk are a prey species. They are inherently MORE fearful 2nd. 120,000 elk in MT, 100,000 in WY, and another 100,some thousand in ID with tens of thousands of hunters trying to kill elk, it’s a learned behavior that ones that get shot at, and survive are fearful of being shot at. I don’t know the last time I saw 60+ grizzlies running together.

Now. 1) predator. 2) top of the food chain. Sure. The grizzlies that get shot at and missed, or the VERY few females with cubs that get shot (remember sub quota of 2 in WY) will have a learned behavior to avoid humans/hunters after that. But now we’re talking maybe 6 (let’s say 2 sows with 3 cubs). That then have a less than 60% chance of surviving (that’s 4 cubs) will carry on a trait in an population of 700+ bears (just the GYE) where there is either no hunting (parks) or already thousands of hunters in the woods shooting at animals already.

I don’t care where you’re from. I don’t believe that hunting 3% of the population, which MIGHT pass on a learned behavior to now suddenly avoid humans more-so than they already should to less than 1% will have any affect on whether or not they decide to attack people or not.

It’s a number game. Expanding bear territory= more conflicts with humans=more bear attacks. Sure, if we shot 100 bears a year, or whatever the number is to keep their population at a sustained level, maybe we would see a decrease in bear attacks. But the notion that shooting 3% of a population leads to an increased fear of two legged doesn’t add up
 
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I believe there's a pretty simple concept being overlooked here. You increase the frequency of negative encounters with big predators by allowing their numbers to increase, while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of encounters with humans. Put enough big predators and humans into the Petri dish and watch what develops. You need BOTH, and that's what you get in elk country occupied by an expanding grizzly population.

I've personally never bought into the argument that hunting bears or wolves or cats makes the overall population wary or fearful of man. Perhaps it does for the actual animals having negative encounters, but I believe it takes generations of hunting (and I'm talking hard hunting) before the effect becomes more widespread through a population....if it ever does. I can tell you from experience that grizzlies which never get hunted and have little or no human interaction typically avoid humans instinctively.
 

9Line

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Dtkryman I'm with you, what the hell is there to investigate?

The investigation needs to happen for multiple reasons. This is information that is useful to support the need for regulation, not just against it. There needs to be evidence to support the removal of the grizzly from the ESL. Otherwise, the individuals "responsible" to vote for the removal, whom otherwise wouldn't, definitely will not.
 
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I believe there's a pretty simple concept being overlooked here. You increase the frequency of negative encounters with big predators by allowing their numbers to increase, while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of encounters with humans. Put enough big predators and humans into the Petri dish and watch what develops. You need BOTH, and that's what you get in elk country occupied by an expanding grizzly population.

I've personally never bought into the argument that hunting bears or wolves or cats makes the overall population wary or fearful of man. Perhaps it does for the actual animals having negative encounters, but I believe it takes generations of hunting (and I'm talking hard hunting) before the effect becomes more widespread through a population....if it ever does. I can tell you from experience that grizzlies which never get hunted and have little or no human interaction typically avoid humans instinctively.





Kevin, I do in fact take your opinion in high regards. You have enough of it that in grizzly country it would be crazy not to listen. And, I agree that numbers and interactions with humans are directly correlated. However, I don't believe the effect of killing anything will not lead to a conditioning. Just like bears become conditioned to gun shots, bears will become conditioned to being hunted. It might take a couple generations of bears. And, yes there will always be some grizzly bears that get aggressive. That is what they do. But, they aren't dumb. And, this process would apply to any animal. Grizzly not excluded.



slick, read above and see that I do understand your point of total numbers. Where we disagree is grizzly bears are not on the top of the food chain unless given a veil of protection to be. So, they instinctively know humans are until conditioned not to. Yes, they are a ill tempered animal at times. They are a force. But, as Kevin has pointed out, most run in the emote areas he hunts every year. Especially in areas they have no or little contact with humans. Where they get into trouble is in places where they have been conditioned not to fear people. To suggest that conditioning won't go both ways is indeed comparing apples to oranges in my mind.



You might be right. 3% likely isn't going to have a lot of effect. But, I suspect the 3% is just a starting point. And, when delisted, states will increase as the problems spreads and increases.
 

mtmuley

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So for a bear to pass on learned behavior, seems to me it would fall on the shoulders of the sow. Boars don't teach the young grizzly anything, except they might be dinner. Just wondering where the learned behavior is going to come from? mtmuley
 

JWP58

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So for a bear to pass on learned behavior, seems to me it would fall on the shoulders of the sow. Boars don't teach the young grizzly anything, except they might be dinner. Just wondering where the learned behavior is going to come from? mtmuley

Perhaps you might Google epigenetics
 

slick

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I do think that most grizzlies encountered in the GYE do still run from humans. Heck I’ve seen it first hand and have a pile of friends/colleagues/acquaintances that live and work in the GYE and the majority of bears are still fearful of humans with or without a tag in their pocket. But the average bear in the GYE is more likely to run into people than a remote interior brown bear. Therefore increasing encounter rates (which I know you don’t disagree with) which overall increases the rate of attacks. I still don’t think that they will be more conditioned due to a hunting season. And I can agree to disagree.

Also would love to see actual stats on how many people are recreating in bear country in the lower 48 and the # of attacks per year along side bear expansion. The reality of it is you’re still not likely to get attacked.
 

mntnguide

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The thought that a hunt would cause "fear" in grizzlies and change behavior is far fetched. I live here in the heart of grizzly country western wyoming and do all my hunting in it and have had many close encounters, luckily none requiring shots fired. But I know just as anyone, killing a couple bears will not change the behavior of the hundreds that roam the mountains. It is a step in the right direction to have a hunting season, because the species is recovered and is a story of conservation success. The hunting season should not be based on the thought it will stop future attacks. Because it will not. As the numbers of bears continue to increase and big boars push others into areas with less food, attacks will continue to be a common a place thing unfortunately. At this point, there is very little chance we will curb the increase of the grizzly population because the anti's will never let us get a hunting season that actually allows us to harvest a necessary number of bears. Grizzlies are here to stay, and their "attitude" wont change no matter what, they are a bear and do what they do, and if someone is worried of the thought of running into one, stay out of grizzly country. pretty simple.
 
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So for a bear to pass on learned behavior, seems to me it would fall on the shoulders of the sow. Boars don't teach the young grizzly anything, except they might be dinner. Just wondering where the learned behavior is going to come from? mtmuley


There is more to it then that. Every mammal alive, including humans understands the prey and predator relationship. And, most seem to recognize when they are in danger. Grizzly Bears will be no different. When they routinely become the prey. Some will always be cantankerous or more inclined to be aggressive. Some won't. They are individuals just like us. And, just like humans, their unpredictability will many times depend on the situation. All apex predators have the ability to intermingle among their prey. Until that flip switches and the prey realizes it's being hunted. This mindset applies to every predator/prey relationship in nature. Humans are a part of that too.




This really is becoming a game of semantics. Which is typical in these discussions. Most topics have been covered that are involved. All have merit. But, to instance the basis of survival does not apply to a certain species is simply not correct.
 

Beendare

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Has anyone heard what happened on the Grizz attack on a couple bowhunters at the Wapiti Trail just north of Yellowstone in MT last week?

All we got from the circus of F&G guys there was that there is possibly a wounded G bear running around and they closed off a bunch of the area.
_________

Re Hunt conditioning;
All animals can be conditioned to hunting....which equates to more respect to humans.....lots of cases of this:

Hunt mature whitetails out of the rut...most heavily hunted animals go partially or completely nocturnal in the case of smart ones.
Hunt a limited draw area and you can see the difference lightly hunted makes.
Hunt a private ranch for coyotes where they get shot at....and where they don't....big difference.

Hunt any unit with bears that can be hunted and let them get your wind....they are outta there!
 

mtmuley

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WV Mountaineer, I 'm not willing to bet my life what you say is correct and will happen. Guess time will tell. I do appreciate your info. mtmuley
 

slick

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The one thing I can see happening is people are more apt to shoot a bear showing ANY defensive/aggressive behavior due to them being off the list.

Also- I don’t think deer or elk or moose are a fair comparison. I don’t even think wolves are a fair comparison. When anyone and everyone can go buy 5 wolf tags in MT, they ALL get shot at. As soon as they step out into the open it’s guns ablaze. The reality of it is a tiny portion of bears will be hunted, leading to a tiny portion of bears being shot at, leading to a tiny portion of bears showing any increased “fear” towards humans.

Also I think they are more “conditioned” to people because there are just MORE people in the woods. I don’t think bear behavior will have any noticeable change in any of our lifetimes.

And with that, I’m out.
 
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In all fairness, a good bit of the bears will be hunted. Only a few will be killed. TO verify your argument, if only the hunted bears were killed, then conditioning would never happen.



I couldn't agree more with the point about more people and more bears equal more conflict.
 

mtmuley

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Betting my life was just a figure of speech. Safe hunting WV. Especially out here in grizzly country. mtmuley
 
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Likely a moot point in any event. In the lower 48, the grizzly is NOT going to get hunted hard enough (as in bears shot at, wounded or killed) to broadly 'condition' the overall population to avoid humans. Conversely, the fact that so many humans are afield probably conditions bears to expect our presence. If the vast majority of those bear/man interactions produce no seriously negative consequences for either party (which is of course what we ultimately hope for) the bear has less reason to avoid people the next time. We simply can't shoot at, wound or kill enough grizzlies (given the degree of hunting they'll likely be exposed to) to bring about additional population-wide adaptive avoidance behaviors. I say additional because avoidance of man is still an instinctive behavior of the overall species. I've seen this demonstrated repeatedly when hunting extremely remote areas where grizzlies encounter man with such rarity that some of them may not see a human even once per year. My experiences when encountering these totally wild bears is that 90+% of them take immediate action to avoid me, even though they've never had a bad human encounter. Most of them disappear and never return or show aggression.

Lower 48 grizzlies are never going to be truly wild and free of human influence. There will be conflicts. I just don't ever see those bears getting hunted hard and aggressively. Politics will prevent that from happening.
 

wyosteve

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Really glad to see that many agree with what I've espoused for years. Hunting will make no difference to the grizzlies. Using reverse logic, since bears in the lower 48 have not been hunted for over 40 years, you'd think they all would not be concerned with human presence, yet everyone I've encountered has moved off when they smelled/saw me. Further, grizzlies have been hunted forever in Alaska and Canada, yet there are maulings/killings every year up there.
 

Foldem

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The only way I think it will have an effect with such low numbers is if the more aggressive or less fearful males are the ones that are harvested at a higher rate, and if that is a trait that can be passed to offspring, it should start to show less in the population after decades of sustained hunting.
 
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