Black bears do not need hunters

I thought I'd talk a bit about bears, a creature I have yet to meet, although I now live closer to bear country. I moved to Eastern Shore CT-- not really by the shore,  deeper inland by lakes and woods.
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There have been bear sightings, but not recently, although a few have walked down a nearby street. Three years ago there was a mother and yearlings who frequented the neighborhood. Everyone took down bird feeders and were careful with garbage pales on garbage removal day. The bear stole a few bird feeders but that was it. She stayed by the lake with her kids and preferred humans leave her alone. Once the feeders came down and garbage was secured, she stopped pilfering.

Bears are like that. You remove the easy food, they walk away. Bears are not lazy, they are smart, and smart animals, including humans, when given a choice will always take the reward that requires less work. If you could choose how to make a million dollars and one choice required 12 hour work days, six days a week for four years, the other was buying some meme coin that everyone says is guaranteed to rise to a million dollars in a few days you'd take the meme coin. Right? Same with the bear. So if we leave out food? That's an easy choice. 

Bears are amazing creatures. They rarely eat animals. They prefer plants, fruits and nuts, insects, lizards. They are omnivores but lean towards veggies and fruit.  Still, even with this vegetarian diet, by the end of the eating season, the bear is fat. But only if the land is healthy. Droughts, fires, overdevelopment, flooding can damage the land, leaving it unhealthy. And bears cannot thrive if the land is unhealthy. So their population is a good indicator of our land's health.  

Female bears are desperate to gain weight by winter so they can go into their torpor state with enough fat to sustain a pregnancy and nursing. If they do not have that fat, many times, the fetus will not survive. It is reabsorbed into their system.  A natural abortion which serves as a population control when food is not available. 

Since bear fat is critical to their survival and ability to propagate, by fall, the bear is in fight mode, desperate to eat and put on weight. If the land is not healthy, they could venture into human territory to find food. And this is the bear's greatest threat. Humans. Particularly humans with guns.  Most humans do not understand black bears, and history tells us that when humans are fearful and misinformed, they resort to violence.  

Thirty-two states allow bear hunting--all of the Western states and most Northeastern, Mid-Atlantic, and Appalachian states.  

Connecticut has so far held off the eager hunters, although every year bear hunting bills are considered. This year a bill is being seriously considered that will allow farmers to expand the circumstances necessary for a bear kill. While the bill, S.B. 1523, has not been approved by the Senate, it is expected to become law. No longer will the farmer be required to use other non lethal strategies to deter the bear first before resorting to the gun. They can now just shoot the bear when they see it eating their corn. Furthermore, the farmers complained about having to request a permit, which takes time and by the time the farmer has the permit, the bear has left the farm. So, now, the farmer can kill a bear that munched on its crop the year before. How do they know its the same bear? How do we know the farmer is telling the truth and not just shooting a bear? 

I suspect this law, if passed, can lead to many false killings and complications. Mothers leaving orphan cubs behind. Bears passing through will be shot. Bears wrongly identified as a past thief will be shot.  

There is plenty of support for these hunting laws because every time a bear charges a human, it makes the news. Black bear attacks are rare, but when they happen, we all know about it. The pro-hunting crowd always emphasize the danger of the growing bear population, as if the bears are looming around the edges of our neighborhoods, ready for a fight. 

But they are not looming around our neighborhoods, and black bears do not like to fight. Most charges are warnings.  On average, the US records about 3.8- 4 black bear attacks per year.  And rarely do any attacks result in death. According to North American Bear Center, only 61 people across the entire North America have been killed by a black bear since 1900! Compare this to dog attacks. It is estimated the dogs kill 50 people annually in the US alone. 

​And as I stated before, when food is scarce, bears have a natural population control feature -- their reproductive systems, which cannot nourish a fetus unless the mother has a certain amount of fat. If the mother cannot gain sufficient weight, the fetus is reabsorbed. There is no need to kill bears to cull population growth. And while I do understand the problems with farmer's crops, there are many ways to manage the field in order to deter bears. Electric fences. Noise. Scarecrows. Etc Etc.  A few may have to be killed, but I don't believe we have to kill bears we "suspect" ate corn last year. Killing a bear in the act of eating all your produce is one thing, shooting a bear you suspect ate something last year is quite another. Truly, where's the due process!?

And don't go away, it gets worse. People determined to kill other animals will not stop. HB 7051, which has not been called for a vote but is  being considered,  proposes hunting and killing bears to lower the risk of bear human confrontation.  Will this lower the risk? Or raise it. Sure,  there. have been close encounters of the black bear kind in Connecticut, but rarely does the encounter result in harm. Bears can be encouraged to move on with hand waving and noise. They are not looking for trouble. Furthermore, most bears only come around if there is an abundance of food easily available. So get rid of it.

But if you start shooting bears?  I wonder if they will see humans as enemies instead of nuisances. Look, we humans tend to read stories about one scary encounter with an animal species, then create horrible images of that creature in our mind. That tendency to stereotype is exacerbated by eager hunters who take advantage of incidences in the news to promote fear.  What if the bears create images of us based upon our encounters?  If continuous shooting results in a bad impression of us, bears may no longer quietly pass us by. They may not run away if we wave our hands. If they see us as bad animals--and killing with no cause, no need, would be seen as unusually cruel-- they would begin to think of us as enemies and attacks may rise.  This is what happened to elephants in Africa when too many were murdered by poachers. They attacked villages.  

When a dog attacks a human in CT, law enforcement can order the owner to put it down. However, we don't grab our guns and start shooting any ole dog that happens to run by us off leash! 

There is  is no need for bear hunting. Bears do not need hunters.

Thank you for reading.