Black Bears Do Not Deserve This Fate
“Bears are intrinsically social, they need to be social, but our species has not let them do so because of our own profound fear.” ~ Charlie Russell
Our streets are stained with blood. Between 2011 and 2019, 4,341 black bears were killed by the Conservation Officer Service (COS) in British Columbia. Last year alone, 542 bears lost their lives. They were not destroyed or euthanized, but shot dead or left to die, writhing in agony from mortal wounds. Still, the number of deaths is only a number, and no matter how high it is, the cold abstraction conceals individual anguish. It renders anonymous all those animals that ran for their lives, their hearts filled with panic and their eyes, at times, blurred by real tears. In some cases, whole families perished. Who died first? The mom? Or did she first see her little ones gunned down? Some people heard a mom crying for her little ones. The memory of the piercing wail never goes away.
But our lives go on uninterrupted; the sound of a shotgun dies out soon. Anyway, in the large scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. Individual bears might have been shot and discarded, but “there’s still a healthy population” out there. That’s what one conservation officer takes solace in. He assures us that killing bears is “not fun,” and it is done “with care and with respect.” These euphemisms are disheartening. It is as if killing those bears was not enough. Their suffering needs to be rendered palatable with truth-distorting euphemisms. In the past 8 years, 4341 black bears that wandered into people’s backyards were “euthanized” without any “fun”. As for “care and respect,” carcasses of some of them were “dumped into greenspace for carrion” or “deposited at the landfill.”
And if the assurance of “a healthy population” is not enough, then the perennial, all-encompassing claim of “public safety” is dispatched to justify the slaughter. Bears were “destroyed”, because they were “aggressive”, “dangerous”, “food conditioned” and “habituated”. Their very presence in urban areas posed a danger to the public. It is a case of choosing a lesser evil: bears must be killed, so they don’t kill us. To survive, we need to keep our urban habitat free of wild influences; we need to keep “the savage world” at bay.
These are fictitious, self-serving arguments to soothe pangs of conscience. After all, nothing works better than fear-mongering; nothing works better than justifying cruelty as an unfortunate price to pay for ensuring a greater good. But let’s dispense with the falsehoods, just for once. Keeping the public safe? What danger to the public did a mother black bear pose running away from people? What danger to the public did juvenile bear cubs pose when they were shot dead next to their mother? None, of course. Their deaths prove nothing, except for our capacity for cruelty and indifference.
And what about the notion of so-called “nuisance” or “problem” bears being a danger to the public? Making such a claim would require supporting data, but such data are lacking. Ironically, the COS itself provides counter-evidence to its assertion that the selective killing of “problem” bears is essential to keeping the public safe. Since 2011, there have been at least 160,000 calls reporting bear sightings. The COS concedes that it has been able to respond to approximately 10% of those calls. Moreover, countless human-bear encounters taking place in urban areas of British Columbia go unreported.
And, yet, despite the vast discrepancy between the number of human-bear encounters and the number of conservation officers’ actual interventions, we don’t hear about people being mauled or killed by “vicious” black bears. These attacks do not seem to happen whether conservation officers intervene or not. Given the media’s thirst for sensationalized headlines, it is a proof as good as any that black bears do not pose a significant threat to the public. Moreover, the responded calls were not necessarily any more serious than all the other bear sightings, both reported and unreported. As often, the COS’s decisions to respond are driven by the perception of fear rather than by any inherent danger to the public.
Why do we kill black bears, then? If gunning down whole families of bears does not contribute to public safety, what does it accomplish? What is its real purpose? Well, it makes the public feel safer. Conservation policies are designed not so much to prevent danger as to prevent the fear of danger. As Charlie Russell, a renowned bear expert, argued, our irrational fear of bears sets the stage for antagonistic relations with these animals. Removed from nature by the civilizing process, we live in fear of some of its most magnificent creatures, bears among them. The fear of the unknown magnifies the real danger: “We are the source of food for bears,” “What if is a bear encounters small kids playing on the playground?” “What if someone is mauled or killed?” Indeed, what if, what if, what if. The mind comes up with scenarios and the imagination stokes fears. Irrational ones. As Lynn Rogers, a researcher who studied black bears for over 50 years, says that most people expect a bear to behave aggressively rather than what a bear ends up doing in reality. In other words, the danger might not be real, but the fear of a non-existent threat persists anyway. And it is this distorted perception of fear that both instigates and justifies the lethal conservation policies.
The psychology of risk perception illuminates the irrationality of our fears. We have an inflated perception of risk when facing situations over which we have little control. Regardless of the statistical data that objectively quantifies danger, we feel more vulnerable and endangered in a plane, up in the air, than when grasping a steering wheel of a car with our own hands. There is a distorted logic to it. Flying is what most of us do only occasionally, sitting passively in an assigned seat, while driving is a daily activity to which we are accustomed and over which we have a sense of relative control. Moreover, plane crashes, though rare, make headlines, whereas the mundane lethality of driving is, paradoxically, too commonplace to evoke fears.
In this context, black bears have the misfortune of generating “a perfect storm” of irrational human fears. Encounters with them are still relatively rare; bears’ sheer physical power makes us feel defenceless, and if a human-bear encounter ever goes wrong, it can count on provoking a coverage tantamount to reporting on a plane crash. Not surprisingly then, in some urban neighbourhoods, residents fear being attacked by a bear more than driving a car. The truth doesn’t matter. Not when it is dwarfed by the overpowering irrationality of fear.
But, still, what is the truth? Dave Garshelis, a bear research scientist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, says that “fatal black bear attacks on humans are so rare that they occur, on average, once per year across North America.” Rogers reiterates the low likelihood of the danger by stating that “about one black bear out of 1 million will attack a human in a predatory manner.” A long-term quantitative research corroborates these findings. According to the study led by Stephen Herrero, a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary and an eminent bear authority, black bears caused 63 fatalities between 1900–2009. Most of these lethal encounters occurred in remote areas of Canada and Alaska and were instigated by predatory male bears rather than “habituated” black bears or female black bears with cubs. Contrary to common belief, female black bears with cubs are not dangerous. There is not even a single case recorded where a female black bear killed anyone in defence of her cubs. Female black bears may appear ferocious and may show bluster, but it is a sign of them being nervous and not an indication of a threat to ‘public safety.’ After all, often, mother bears are entering urban areas not to forage on human food but to keep their cubs safe from male bears. How ironic it is that we do not offer them this protection and do not reciprocate the trust they put in us.
Moreover, it has been documented that over 50 percent of the bear attacks took place in the presence of unleashed dogs. Clearly, an avoidable outcome. Indeed, statistically, more people are killed or mauled by domestic dogs than by black bears. Do we call conservation officers when a stranger’s dog passes us by? No, that would be silly. Not so insane, though, as killing a bear that happened to cross our path. Human-bear encounters in our urban neighbourhoods can lead to death. But only bears do the dying.
Of course, as with everything in life, some danger exists. Bears are wild animals, and a bear-human encounter can turn tragic. Still, the remoteness of such an event falls within the scope of acceptable risk that all of us take every day without thinking much about it. For instance, in the US, about 100 people drown each day compared to one person killed by black in a whole year. But we still enjoy swimming. Between 1982 and 2012, dogs accounted for more fatalities than bears. During this time, 497 people died from dog attacks across the US and Canada. But we are still eager to pat a stranger’s dog. As well as skiing, taking a hike in the forest, eating in a restaurant, going to a game, crossing an icy road in a park. There are countless examples of so-called risks that we take every day while accepting the remoteness of the danger inherent to them because they give us joy that makes life worth living. Why can’t we extend this to the joy of a peaceful co-existence with nature?
We can’t. Those who advocate for a more compassionate approach in managing our interactions with bears are ridiculed as naïve and driven by emotions. This is sadly ironic since the whole conservation policy is driven by the emotion of irrational fear. It doesn’t matter, though, and the old misconceptions about bears are again churned up to the rescue. Bears that enter urban neighbourhoods are instantly labelled as “habituated” and “food-conditioned”. Once it happens, we might as well call them ‘dead’. These words -“habituated”, “food-conditioned”- and other qualifiers used to describe bears spotted in residential areas are frivolously tossed around until they become synonyms with “aggressive” and “dangerous”. It is at this point that the fate of a black bear is sealed.
We must discard the old misconceptions that these words codify. An abundance of scientific data tells us that habituation does not make bears more likely to attack. As Rogers states, “[when] bears gain trust, they become much less likely to respond aggressively to people.” This is echoed by Stephen Stringham, a world authority on the behavior of bears, who argues that “habituated bears have proven to be less of a danger than taking a walk through the woods or doing home repairs.”
Again, it is our misplaced fear that dictates our interpretation of an encounter. In their peer-reviewed paper, Rogers and Stringham state: “Neither boldness nor trust for humans should be equated with aggressiveness.” False-charging, swatting the ground, and huffing loudly are “a tactic to delay confrontation to establish communication,” says Ben Kilham, a bear biologist and the founder of Kilham Bear Center. While many regard these actions as indications of imminent threat or danger, Stringham calls them a harmless bluster. They merely express nervousness and apprehension rather than readiness for an attack. Rogers and Stringham go even further arguing that bears are not anthropophobic or, to put it differently, naturally fearful of us. The fear of people is more likely a consequence of negative experiences they had with them.
Still, expediency replaces real knowledge. It is less cumbersome, time-consuming, or costly to proclaim that “bears no longer afraid of people are dangerous” and then act accordingly on this misconception. Indeed, why bother with science, if it comes with the inconvenience of making informed decisions on a case by case basis? The same applies to the continuously repeated statement that “a fed bear is a dead bear.” No, it doesn’t have to be true. A fed bear is a dead bear only if the COS chooses to kill him.
Certainly, we do not want black bears roaming about in proximity to our houses and feeding on human food, but this does not mean that the “punishment” for their doing so should be death. This is wrong. Killing a bear that may not pose any danger to people fits the strain of “conservation” that is based on unjustified fear and disregard for life rather than on solid science. Rogers argues there is no science supporting the necessity of killing bears that become “food conditioned”. His and Stringham’s studies corroborate the effectiveness of diversionary and supplementary feeding as ways to wean bears off human food. Furthermore, a six-year Colorado Parks and Wildlife black bear study demonstrated that bears that eat human food do not become addicted to it. Black bears’ evolutionally make-up renders them more predisposed to subsist on wild food. Bears tend to return to wild places once the food becomes more plentiful.
These are the facts that should inform our actions. The very notion of discretion implies that conservation officers do not have to kill black bears that show signs of “habituation” or “food conditioning”. It is their choice. This fact and the earlier statement of the conservation officer that bears are shot with sadness and heavy heart should steer this discretion towards employing non-lethal management approaches. Especially, since they exist, and employing them requires little more than basic compassion and humanity. For instance, when a tranquillized bear falls down from a tree, he often breaks his neck. Using a simple catching net would prevent such a needless death. Conservation officers’ failure to do so counters the claims of “care” and “respect”.
Overall, the Get Bear Smart Society offers a comprehensive review of non-lethal options that reflect our knowledge of bears’ biology and behaviour. Some methods may work in some cases and not in others. It all depends on an individual bear’s personality, habitat availability, wild food supply, and other interacting social and ecological factors. But we can’t judge the effectiveness of non-lethal options if we are not willing to test them. And we are not.
According to Government Statistics, between 2011 and 2019, conservation officers relocated less than 1 percent of bears they dealt with. Moreover, only 5.4 percent of human-bear interactions were resolved by hazing. Indeed, for every hazed bear, four other bears were killed. Relocation data are even more depressing. For every black bear that was given a chance to be relocated, 25 other bears were shot. It is thus disingenuous to argue the ineffectiveness of non-lethal attempts if they are barely utilized. This reality presents a stark contrast to the claim of the COS that “shooting an animal is their last option when dealing with problem wildlife.” With more than 500 bears killed this year alone, it seems like the only option.
A time for change has come. Current conservation policies are driven by irrational fears, reluctance to inconvenience ourselves in co-existence with nature, and resistance to learning and challenging the status quo. They are rooted in antiquated myths. Bears are managed as “species” or, as government bureaucrats phrase it, “life game”, and not as living creatures with complex inner lives. These conservation approaches are the legacy of a hunt, trap and kill mentality. The legacy we can’t free ourselves from. In their book Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age, Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce discuss the “knowledge translation gap”. Our adherence to misguided attitudes and practices allows us to justify causing harm to animals, despite the preponderance of science on animal cognition and emotions. It is enough to read the COS’ Bear Conflict Response Matrix to realize how easy it is to justify killing a bear. Each officer has discretion on how to define a conflict and how to deal with one; moreover, there is no independent oversight or transparency tool to evaluate individual decisions. In essence, killing a bear is never wrong.
It doesn’t have to be like this. We have accumulated so much knowledge about black bears. As Kilham writes; “Bears are part of sophisticated societies that we are only beginning to understand.” They have different types of social behaviour that possibly parallel early human behaviour. They are not solitary, aloof animals, as often portrayed. They have impressively complex social relationships based on alliances formed with other bears and, once rules are established, they can do well in overlapping home ranges. They operate with a moral code, demonstrate altruism, and have a well-developed system of justice, punishment, friendship, and food-sharing. They use facial expressions, ear movements, and body language. They employ a wide array of vocalizations to communicate fear, danger, dominance, subordination, and a level of comfort with one another. Indeed, they have successfully communicated for millions of years. Now, they are trying to speak to us, but we refuse to listen. Fear begets fear.
Again, it does not mean that we want black bears to roam freely in our neighbourhoods. We do not want it, and bears do not want it, either. They would rather roam in their habitat, feed on natural food sources, and stay away from people.
It is thus paramount that we learn how to interact peacefully with these magnificent creatures. To make it happen, we need a holistic approach that targets the current problems at different levels. Firstly, properly securing our garbage and removing all attractants are a must. Just as buckling up the moment we enter a car or locking it once we leave it. Nothing justifies ignorance. It is also about educating ourselves. We are bound to co-exist with black bears, and so we owe them to learn about their way of acting when our paths happen to cross. It can be done. “Bears can read our emotional communication [and] it’s not that hard for us to understand how a bear communicates”, Kilham says. Charlie Russell’s decades-long peaceful relationship with bears has proven that. Knowledge, tools, resources are available to us. We need the will.
Moreover, cities in B.C. have to pass bylaws that demonstrate that the lives and well-being of bears have value. Symbolic fines for improperly managing bear attractants do not send this message. We already witnessed some positive developments, such as increasing fines for unsecured garbage by the city of Port Moody. We still need to allocate, however, sufficient resources and staff to enforce solid waste bylaws.
Finally, the creation of an independent oversight body for BC COS would ensure transparency and give the public a venue to voice its concerns. The Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre call, in their report, for both establishing a third-party oversight body and revising the BC COS internal policies. Pacific Wild, a B.C. environmental group, proposed outfitting all officers with body cameras while they operate in the field.
We have the right to know how decisions are being made and whether killing a bear or family of bears was indeed the “last option”. Leaving the fate of wild animals entirely in the hands of unaccountable conservation officers will not suffice. The sheer number of more than 4300 bears killed within the last 8 years tells us this. Indeed, any taxpayer-funded entity should have independent oversight. What we request is consistency. Hospitals, schools, police, and many other government-run service entities are overseen by independent agencies that monitor the actions of those in power. The conservation field deserves the same.
It is also high time for wildlife management policies to close the “knowledge translation gap” and embrace decades of experiential and scientific knowledge about the true nature of bears and their emotional and cognitive capacities. This knowledge exposes the cruelty of treating bears as aggregate, inanimate, disposable objects. A concern for species and populations needs to give way to a concern for individual animals. This is what really counts, regardless of whether the “population” is “endangered” or “healthy.”
In the end, we owe bears respect. No bear should die because of poorly secured trash or because irrational fears rather than compassion dictate our actions. There are no “nuisance” bears; there are no “problem” bears. These words are labels of convenience that we use to hide our discomfort with nature. Nor should bears die because raising a shotgun is the fastest way to deal with wild animals that cross our path. This doesn’t have to happen. This must not happen. We, British Columbians, are the lucky ones. We should be thankful for the privilege of living so close to nature, within the reach of its magnificent embrace. Wild animals are an integral part of nature, and so are we, after all. A peaceful, non-violent co-existence between us and them is possible. And it depends on us. We need to change how we interact with animals whose habitats we have invaded. Also, we need to urge those who have the power over life and death to change their ways.
