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Posted by Bill S on April 6, 2007 at 1:38:26 pm EDT
In reply to Re: Comment on PhD bears and a couple of questions - posted by Gear Selection (Guest) on April 5, 2007 at 9:44:28 pm EDT

cat -
Hopefully, with the education and bear management practices in Alaska, the bears will not become habituated. And as part of that, hopefully, the Timothy's of this world will remain rare (Barb and I spent some time photographing the brown bears in Katmai within 30 miles of where he and his girlfriend were eaten, though we didn't find that out until a couple days after we came out).

In areas where good habits have been practiced, the bears have not become habituated and simple bear bagging works just fine. One of these in Philmont Scout Ranch, which runs thousands of boys through the backcountry each summer. The first couple of days of each trek are accompanied by a ranger, who does a lot of education, including demonstrations, and warnings. Most of the Northeastern US also seems ok. It's mostly places like Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier NP where tourists have been careless for decades and they even had rangers putting out food for years to attract the bears for tourists to see. I saw a program not long ago on how some of the northern Canadian and Alaskan communities have had problems with polar bears in their garbage dumps and are now taking steps to de-habituate the bears. OTOH, I read that polar bears will actually stalk humans, unlike unhabituated brown/grizzly and black bears. From experience, I do know that our local black bears are usually pretty shy of humans. This even includes the "burglar bears" that have been breaking into cabins in the Lake Tahoe area the past few years and raiding refrigerators (yes, they actually look through the kitchen window to spot the fridge, break through the door, and go straight for the fridge). But if they encounter a human, they usually run off, though some have been reported to ignore the human yelling at them and keep on eating. The reports are that they are picky eaters, going only for certain foods.

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• Re: Comment on PhD bears and a couple of questions - - Tom D 03:18:30 04/07/2007
  • Bear Vault Solo approved for Denali!! - cat 23:33:39 04/18/2007

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