Voices from the Flats – Rogue Grizzly (post contains graphic image)
WARNING – This post is not for the faint of heart and contains a graphic image.
It deals with the difficult issue of predator control. When we think of predator control in Alaska, many who have not had much personal experience might think of Sarah Palin shooting wolves out of a helicopter for fun. That’s the image that pops into the minds of many in the Lower 48. But, as with most things, the deeper you look the more complicated they get.
Issues such as this are never black and white. Rural Alaskans face challenges that most others can’t even imagine. “Predator control” has very different connotations when predators are in your own back yard. The reasons for predator encounters with human settlements, domesticated animals, and humans themselves are also complex, and some are of our own making.
Mudflatter UgaVic who lives in an extremely remote and rural area of the state and writes for the blog Anonymous Bloggers, shares her story with us about an unfortunate encounter with a brown bear (called a grizzly outside Alaska), and has more to come.
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A Rogue Grizzly, and What it Cost us
By UgaVic
We are dealing with the issue of predators, how they impact those of us who LIVE in the areas affected by some of the state’s management practices and what it costs, at least for some of us!!!
The Alaska Peninsula is that skinny part of Alaska that leads down to the Aleutian Islands and has Bristol Bay on the west side of it. The State Board of Game rotates on a 3 year schedule through the various areas of the state. Our area runs the 4th through the 10 this month. This is also the area where the young teacher was attacked and killed by the wolf pack last year despite years of us being told wolves do not attack people. (Unfortunately these meeting are not held in the areas affected so residents can speak to the issues, but in Anchorage or, like this year, a suburb of Anchorage! This effectively greatly limits our rural voices being heard in person.)
We, a group of villages, in this ‘game area’ will be trying to get the attention of the Game Board these few days to present our side of the past years’ ‘management’ of predators and how we have paid for that ‘management’.
All of this came right to our yard in a different, but just as brutal and upsetting way on Christmas Eve, just a few months ago.
My family and our two dogs returned on Christmas Eve from our local airport and collecting our mail. It was a cold day, in the negatives, and with a good snow cover. There was a gentle wind from the north. The weather had been this way for a good month or so and we were in winter mode of watching for wolves in the wee hours. We were not worried about Brown bear as they had been denned up for probably close to two months.
We got out of the car in our driveway and one of us started packing mail and packages into the house while the other walked the opposite direction to check our generator, about 150 yards away. The dogs were in the yard between us just generally sniffing around. The yard is cleared and no brush is around for some distance. Generally this is an area that wild animals avoid as they are totally exposed and near humans. The village we live in, as a whole, is pretty active year around.
On my second trip into the entry to drop mail our one dog that is the ‘warning or alarm’ animal started barking loudly with her ‘serious danger’ bark. I raced out near her and called for our second dog, who had been there just minutes ago. I heard a kind of weird/odd snarl sound but nothing else. No second dog and the other one racing to the side of the yard near a gentle slope.
I yelled and my spouse ran toward the area I thought I heard the sound come from. Then came the scream to get back, a bear had just killed our dog!! My heart took a twist and my stomach dropped. This doesn’t happen in a village and definitely not this time of year!!
~The one that shed all the blood in the above picture.
I can’t tell you the shock in his voice or his frantic run to the house for a gun. Our other dog was now trying to charge that area and yet keep me safe, just yards away.
Upon getting the gun we ran toward where the bear and dog were. From just a few feet away he dispatched the bear immediately.
This bear showed NO FEAR. I can’t stress this enough…bears do not like humans and REALLY do not like guns. They always turn and run when they hear the click of a gun. We have heard of hunters who stumbled upon a bear in the middle of feeding and been ‘barked’ at but they usually will show sign of wanting to get away when they hear a gun ‘click’.
The dog was dead except for the last futile convulsion her body was going through. She had died in seconds as he jumped her from behind, broke her back and then crushed her skull. She did not have time to yip or even whine.
The dog that HATES bears never got a chance to bark a warning. She most likely saw him or smelled him once he got close to her, as the wind was blowing towards him and away from our dogs.
This bear not only killed our dog but stalked and raced to kill her. We were able to trace his prints back in the fresh snow and see where he planted his paws and started the race to kill her.
Our surprise, as well as all others who have lived here all their lives, came on two fronts. First that we had a Brown bear , called a Grizzly in the lower 48, out this time of year when the weather had been so cold and we had so much snow cover. No one we have talked to since this happened can recall this happening during their life time.
The second surprise was that he stalked her and came into a definitely human area to kill. He was not surprised, there was no food to protect, there were no cubs to protect, we did not have food to entice him in, it was just plain bizarre on many fronts.
After the first round of shock we realized we were equally as close to the original spot the bear started from and within obvious sight of him, or at least smell, as the dog he killed. Had he chosen to go straight instead of veering to the left it would have been me; going to the right, he would have had gotten my spouse.
We KNOW that this bear would not have mauled us but killed us just like the dog, and the ability for one of us to help the other would have been futile …
When that realization sets in you change how you walk out your front door in this part of the country, even in the relatively ‘safe’ winter.
(The next post will look into why things might have gotten to this point)
This story is not a predator control issue (to boost the populations of ungulates like moose and caribou) — it is a defense of life and property story.
Don’t confuse the two.
First, I’ve never read the arial killling (or even the predator control program) promoted to defend life and property.. so that’s new.
In Ohio, if something comes at you or your livestock, you can shoot it. That’s our defense of life and property approach. If you still have concerns, you can get a guardian livestock dog. A pair of GLDs will work 24/7 and more than take care of even a large wolf. Basically, you’re putting a bigger, badder SMARTER “predator” in to take over the teritorry. GLDs tend to kill more domestics than wilds, because domestic dogs don’t have the good sense to realize when they’re faced with a serious territory dispute and the GLD is very good and disposing of those who infringe on their territory. OTOH, coyotes and wolfes tend to size up the situation and quickly move on.
I couldn’t even imagine wasting money on pre-killing all the coyotes in Ohio just because farmers loose livestock to them. Even if we could to it, mice would mow the state flat within the decade.
Wildlife becomes accustomed to the people and some eventually realize that they’re a food source (the garbage, pets and eventually people) that’s a part of not living in the city. If you want to live in the outlands, then you have to accept it for what it is and adapt… otherwise, move to the city where everything is snuggly safe.
Even in the story about that woman being mauled by a wolf… they’ve gone an killed the packs in the area that MIGHT have turned to preying on humans… but that does that mean they should kill every pack in the “county”? They admit that they expect new wolf packs to move into the territory. But, as soon as they push the wolves back far enough, you’ll have coyotes (far quicker to attack pets / humans).. so which is the lesser evil?
It’s not an over people population issue, its a people/wildlife interface issue. Some people realize that when they live in the country, they will have to play a part in defending their territory.
Now, it seems like everyone expects to be able to live in the wild areas and when the local animals try to check out how tastey the new neighbor might be, there should be some program to annihilate the entire species.
Please read the following carefully as it pertains to the area in which ugavic and her family have lived for decades.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_and_Peninsula_Borough
Lake and Peninsula Borough is a borough located in the state of Alaska, United States. As of the 2000 census, the population was 1,823… With an average of 0.0296 inhabitants/km² (0.0767/sq mi), the Lake and Peninsula Borough is the second least densely populated organized county-equivalent in the United States…
The borough has a total area of 30,907 square miles (80,048.8 km2), of which 23,782 square miles (61,595.1 km2) is land and 7,125 square miles (18,453.7 km2) (23.05%) is water. Its land area is larger than that of San Bernardino County, California, the largest county in the contiguous Lower 48 states, and almost as large as the state of West Virginia.
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Additionally, it might be helpful to know:
“The U.S. state of Alaska is not divided into counties, as 48 other states are (Louisiana having parishes instead), but it is divided into boroughs. Many of the more densely populated parts of the state are part of Alaska’s eighteen boroughs, which function somewhat similarly to counties in other states…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boroughs_and_census_areas_in_Alaska
Some of us may have missed the grisly details of the woman teacher mauled to death by wolves in Port Heiden. This community, like ugavic’s, is ALSO in the Lake and Peninsula Borough, just 50 miles to the south of where the bear attacked her.
You can find it here at
http://www.adn.com/2010/12/10/1598468/biologists-kill-12-wolves-near.html
with further commentary at
http://www.thecordovatimes.com/article/1108appraising_life-and-death_stories_of_wolves
All of us Lower 48s need to remember that *POPULATION DENSITY IS NOT THE ISSUE IN THIS PARTICULAR REGION.*
This is IN SPITE OF our own experiences in our own communities in our own states…
I too am sorry for the tragic death of you dog. We here in the NE US need to educate ourselves about how to live with bears because black bears are moving through our neighborhoods. My daughter in NJ has encountered them in parks. Several years ago, one showed up in Chatham and was named by the elementary school kids who often saw it on the playground. Last spring, a bear walked through Cornell’s campus on its way through Ithaca to who-knows-where. There are routine reports of bears all around us in Ithaca. A black bear may be smaller but can be just as deadly.
In Juneau, bears wander around and get into all kinds of mischief. One walked through the automatic doors of the emergency room one night. Another one, lured by the scent of food cooking in the deli, walked through into the safeway store downtown. One morning, I left the house for work and found one sound asleep on my front porch. But they were all the small SE ‘blackies’, or black bears, and no harm came from these encounters.
It is always good to remember that bears have no predators, and no reason to fear anyone. Best to give them all a wide berth.
The loss of a family dog is painful, and certainly it enhances once feelings of vulnerablitiy when the possibilty of ones own fate by bear mauling is a real possiblity. Yet, life in Alaska is different, and those differences include living in close proximity with large predators. Most Alaskan’s consider that a great gift.
I too have lived on the Alaska Peninsula. I lived in the town of cold bay. My house was situated next to a river, a natural “bear” trail so to speak. We had many bears in the area and took precautions to “live” with them. These included large fenced in yards to protect not only our dogs, but our kids and ourselves as well. Of course, we traveled all around and had to be aware, and ready, for bears at ALL times. During the years I lived in Cold Bay, many dogs died from bears. Most lived on the “edge” of town and had owners with no fenced yards. Its just a fact of life you accept when you live in the area. Dogs get eaten from time to time. But, losing a family member is always a very sad event, regardless of the reason why.
It is important to consider that dogs are a much more “natural” prey item for a bear. They are used to killing wolf, fox and any other four legged critter the size of a dog. It is also important to note that this was a young bear, probably having rough go of it in his “adolescent” years. It was out late in the year indicating it was very hungry. Too hungry to hibernate. It is also important to consider that on the Alaska Peninsula, commercial hunting of brown bears rakes in the highest profits of any region of Alaska. The bears can be the largest in Alaska, so the sport trophy hunters come in droves to kill bears here. In the region where this dog died, nealy 500 of the largest bears one can find are killed each year. This results in an “unatural” imbalance in the compostion of the Brown bear population. Large males are the number one “killer” of smaller brown bears. In their abscence, “nature” percieves a “void” and a large influx of younger, adolescence bears are injected into the brown bear population. Over time, in a natural setting, these bears would mature, and then keep the younger bear population “in check”. That is not occuring now. We have a hunting industry that is driving the bear population to a younger and more “dangerous” composition.
Humans can enhance mother nature and be an asset. But, we must work with the “natural” rhythms if we wish to enhance it. Going against the flow, is not only futile, but ineffective.
Live in rural Alaska is always going to be dangerous, and the more careful will survive. Those that wish to have the security of city life, or the lower 48, will simply find themselves in a world of hurt.
I’m so sorry UgaVic for the loss of your beloved furbaby! Wish I could add more to the discussion, but that hurts so bad.
After a trip to Yellowstone this summer and a couple of encounters with a Grizzly sow and her cub, I read Stephen Herreo’s “Bear Attacks” in which he documents virtually every documented bear attack in the U.S. up until 1985. Since I live in black bear country – and our bears here do come into town and even occasionally into homes and we have had a few attacks, I figured I needed to better educate myself.
The behavior of this bear is definitely unusual, but not unheard of. Herreo reports that bears do not necessarily hibernate. Also, just because this attack did not involve the bear coming after garbage or human/pet food does not mean that this bear had not already been habituated to humans. Such a habituated bear, especially one that appeared to be under weight would be less likely to fear humans. He appeared to view your dog as prey and the worst kind of brown bear attack is one of predation. Such attacks usually lead to human fatalities.
I suspect that the reason he had not denned up was due to his lack of sufficient fat to sustain the winter. Whatever the cause of his malnutrition, his hunger probably drove him to this attack. Unless there is a widespread loss of late season food sources for the bears, I suspect this was an unfortunate, but isolated event. Maybe the Game & Fish people can give you some answers. If it is ultimately due to poor wildlife management, I’m not sure how you make enough noise to correct that.
I am extremely sorry for your loss. Your dog looks an awful lot like one of mine, so this story hits uncomfortably close to home.
So, so sorry about the loss of your dog. Please give the surviving pup a hug from me.
I’m curious about how much – if any part – of the animal’s behaviour had to do with climate change. As hard as the skeptics try to deny it, the planet is changing and the animals are adapting. I remember several years ago reading about how stryofoam cups had become so ubiquitous, the American domestic honey bees began processing it for use in hive building.
Rogue behaviour is not unheard of in any species of animal, domestic or not, I grant you. But if this particular young bear had thick fur and a healthy layer of fat, is it not possible that a changing season somehow triggered ‘winter’s over – get up!’ and the animal was simply responding to being awake – and without partental supervision?
One warmish day here in July or August will result in some of our birds get the timing of migratiuon wrong – and our fruit-bearing trees will blossom prematurely, succombing to frost only a week or so later.
It just seems to me that as the climate changes become more pronounced, more animals will be changing habits as well.
Please take care 🙂
Awe, we have a yello lab that looks just like that. All red in the ears and nose. And poor bear. Too bad he was hunting puppies. 🙁
Was the bear ever tested? Clearly, this was an UNUSUAL situation – the author said so herself!
If there is disease, that can and should be remedied. This is a bit like me saying we should kill all the cayotes in Ohio becuase one attacked an animal at the house during daylight. That would be unusual and the animal would very likely be sick in some way to do that.
That bear is clearly dead now and I don’t see how this UNUSUAL situation justifies killing preditors over a very HUGE area. You do realize that killing the predators will increase the ungulates and that as the population increases, they’ll strip all the forage and then you’ll have starved to death ungulates and dead trees all over as well right? The only way to make it safe-comfy-coze would be to flatten and pave the place. If you’re not willing to do that, then you live with the wildlife or move into the city. That is life. You can’t claim to be “rugged stock” then go whining because a bear didn’t go hybernation properly and was starving enough to attack a house pet. Ohio has black bears wondering through housing developments every year, but they’re still protected animals here. It makes the news, but people don’t freak out about it and we certainly don’t authorize people to go out and take pot shots from the sky at them!
At least in the issue of the wolves predator control… killing from planes is actually likely to create MORE wolves because it will break up pack structures and the new “packs” will establish new breeding pairs. So where you might have had 1 breeding pair in a group of six animals, you end up with three packs, three breeding pairs and more animals. If you wanted to REDUCE wolf populations, neuter and release would keep packs in tact and reduce numbers. In ferral cat populations, entire populations can be nearly eliminated in less than a decade (obviously, when there are none to control the territory, new in-tact ferral cats will start again, but if they’re neutered, the population can be maintained at very low levels).
I’m sorry for the dog that died, but I have a dog on the farm and her job is to go against animals. She does her job well, and I’ve had to have the vet sew her back together, but if she were killed I would miss her, but it wouldn’t justify putting a lot of tax dollars into killing every animal in a 20 square mile (let alone a larger area)… we’d be over run with rodents and everything that they keep in check. Our grain fields would be destroyed and we’d have diseases running rampant. You only have to look to Austraila to see what happens when rodent populations aren’t controlled.
My sympathies to the family over their dog, but this does not justify Alaska’s approach to predator control. It’s a waist of money by the state and nothing but a bunch of idiots in the air getting jollies from running down an animal on the ground because there is no financial upside (profit) to the cost of air-time over what they get from the state.
Sorry about your dog, Vic. It’s hard for those of us Outside (particularly the city dwellers among us, no matter how much time we’ve spent in the more natural parts of the world) to imagine having to deal with such a situation. We spend some of our time signing petitions to end the gassing of wolf pups in their dens in places like Idaho and Montana and Wyoming and, yes, Alaska, but many of us (myself not included) have never even seen a wolf or a bear that was close enough or large enough to be dangerous.
I watched T.C. Boyle, one of my favorite authors, as Bill Mahers’ guest. He recounted a story of seeing a mountain lion running away from him, then, not long thereafter, seeing its paw print far from there along the same watercourse. When he told his wife about it, she said (wisely), “Why are you harassing that mountain lion?”
Your situation was anomalous, and I’m glad the humans and one of the dogs survived. Why aren’t people like you and husband asked to serve on F&G?
Just a couple things…we had a brown bear appear on the ridge we live on one December…this “winter bear” came out of hibernation, like bears sometimes do. The one we had here was quite old and skinny, so not really like the one that killed your dog. But, bears do sometimes come out of hibernation, for various reasons. I do wonder what caused your bear to do that… When they come out in winter, they are invariably hungry, and will cause trouble, like the one in our neighborhood. They will look for something to eat and someone will usually shoot them, for good reason.
As far a predator control goes, it is a complicated and sometimes poorly pursued issue all over the state for many, many reasons. There are places in the state where it is warranted, and needs to be carried out carefully, especially with brown bears because they reproduce relatively slowly compared to black bears. The dept. of F&G is incredibly underfunded, in case you weren’t aware, and there is literally no money for predator/prey studies to show where and when predator control should be used. The state dept. of F&G needs adequate funding to make good decisions about predator/prey issues, and for basic research to even show predator numbers and prey (ungulates, that is) status. There are many biologists working for F&G that would love to be able to do a good study somewhere in the state to establish facts about predator numbers and prey/habitat condition, but there IS NO MONEY! Also, predator control, done right, is expensive. The state has to pay for it. Helicopters, planes, etc. are very expensive to fly. So again, the mandate for predator control requires the state to spend much money. And sadly enough, the issue of predators is often misused by special interest groups, mainly outside orgs who want trophy moose, caribou and sheep hunts. Predators are blamed even when they are not responsible for ungulate population problems. There are some places where prey populations are depressed enough to warrant pred control, but not as many as you would think. As far as safety goes, well, we live where big predators live. That is just the way it is. I am very sorry for the loss of your dog, that was terrible. I hope you will never again have such bad luck, which is what, I guess, I would say that was. I do remember some years back here on the peninsula, that a fellow doing seismic research was killed by a brown bear in February. The bear was awakened, and not in a good mood. Again, this was a terrible loss, and what I would say was truly bad luck. These things happen when you live with bears. Last year, one of our very old dogs wandered off and was killed by the wolves that inhabit our area. I was sad for her, and we considered thinning out the wolf pack if they stayed in the area, but they left. Bears, or wolves that become a problem should be shot. That we can do, legally, and without waiting for the state to do something for us. If the bears are a problem, shoot them. But resorting to pred control can be a slippery slope to a place we don’t necessarily want or need to go. Just my opinion.
Btw, I agree that targeting the big boars will lead to greater cub survival in bear pops.
IMHO, I believe that it should generally be handled as locally as possible and by folks who understand the lay of the land. I know many will disagree, but I believe trappers and local hunters would be the best equipped to deal with this reasonably and carefully. Most certainly it wouldn’t be “contract killers” whose motivation is quantity due to the hundreds if not thousands of dollars to be made on pelts. (Last I checked, 1 wolf pelt can bring between $700.00 – $1,000.00)
I agree about dealing with problem predators locally. It looks to me like the bear in question here was dealt with quite locally, and will not be a problem again. Doesn’t mean the state shouldn’t have the money to keep tabs on pred/prey dynamics in various areas…My trapping friends would laugh at the thought of getting $7-1000 for a wolf hide. The finest black wolf skin of good taxidermy quality might fetch $600, but most typical green wolf skins will get you closer to $200-$300 tops, I believe.
Amen!
State has woefully underfunded it’s own responsibility to know what is going on.
Also- keep hearing of too many state biologists ( of the too few we do have ) who grow cynical or embittered with the lack of attention their work receives when issues are being hashed over…
If Alaska wants to keep “big game hunting” and “come see the wildlife” as industries, then the industries needs to pay for proper predator control. If that means that big game hunters pay higher licenses then so be it. Why should all the people of Alaska pay so that the few who run hunting excursions make more money? Why should all the people of America pay because Alaska wants to make money off of big game?
Alasks did have a very good wolf vs ungulate study going until the fly-over idiots started shooting the tagged wolves. When it came down to it, the long term study was stopped because the state said the fly-over controls would work better… that study knew how many packs were hunting what territories… they knew the caribou populations and the forage conditiosn….
Now the state has no idea of how many wolves, bears, what ever they have… they only guess at it. Then when ungulates can’t make it throug winter and are falling over starved in the spring and they say… kill more wolves and bears, when the problem is TOO MANY ungulates stripping the forage… oh, an chronic starvation is another good way to get rid of any hope for ‘trophy animals’… but lets just go gas some more prediators.
I’m sorry, but taking pot shots from the sky is not a real ‘predator control’ program… it’s a sign of corruption by a bunch of people who have powerful buddies in the legislature.
Alaska’s problems,as seen from Iowa, appear to lie in the direction the F and G dept. is heading. They don’t appear to be managing all species for the benefit of all,but have changed their main focus for the enjoyment of wealthy outsiders. Politicizing gov’t agencies is not a good thing. We had eight years of malfeasance under dubya where all gov’t agencies were staffed with the very people these dept. were intended to protect against. That worked out swell for a few and not good for the vast majority.Put the head of the Arabian Horse Club as your head honcho at your main disaster relief organization and see what kind of a disaster you have in store.
Can/do bears get rabies? (Being an Outsider whose home is plunk in the edge of a pine forest, that was my first reaction in reading about the bear’s bizarre behaviour — our neighbors, 1/2-mile down the pike, have had rabid critters roam into their yard on more than one occasion.) beth.
When this happened we too felt this, rabies, might be possible. The troopers and Fish & Game did not seem to be concerned about it. The bears head was sent into F&G but I have no idea if they will test it.
Brown Bear/Grizzly have had reported rabies cases, although very rare.
This was such an extremely weird event in so many ways our hope is that the state biologists, etc. would be curious. So far doesn’t seem to be so.
We, those of us who were around for the events of this, are hoping this does not turn into a ‘we told you so’ event like so many that happened before the teacher was killed.
I wonder (fear) that the biologists, knowing the make-up of the BoG (Board of Game), may believe that nothing would come of it even if they did investigate. They’ve seen what has happened to some of their ranks who have warned about the dangers. (i.e. Rick Sinnott)
Is Rick Sinnott the gentleman I observed on telly running around Anchorage with a young lady assistant,chousing moose and bears out of the suburbs? And didn’t he recently retire?
Yes, it is a sad story without a doubt. What bothers me, however, is how we as human beings enroach upon the habitat of wild animals, basically placing ourselves within their environment and when problems arise, the solution always seems to be about how to remove, control, or destroy the animals. While I sympathize 100%, I would also ask that reason prevail, as hard as it may be to do. Animals do not understand about bounds, about limits, about right and wrong. They only know what nature has given them and how nature has equipped them to deal with it. Whatever the reason for animals attacking, it is the human being who has placed himself within their realm.
Paul – this isn’t urban sprawl we’re talking about here. This is an area inhabited for a very long time, and if anything, the population has dwindled. The cannery has been there since 1963. The bears have more territory than you can probably imagine. This is not about encroachment. This is about balance.
http://www.ugashikvillage.com/about.html
“The Ugashik region has attracted settlement for centuries because of its rich food resources. Archaeological sites near the Ugashik Lakes tell us that people lived there as long as 9,000 years ago.”
That’s true of many areas in the Puget Sound where people sometimes have unwanted encounters with bears (usually black bears) and coyotes. But Puget Sound is not anything like Alaska.
When I was a co-site director at day camp on private property, we saw a lot of wildlife on the 20 acres loaned to us for the sessions. When I started it was a rural area, but by the time I finished in 2007, it was as Paul describes – surrounded by housing developments. The wildlife had a smaller habitation area. Part of the reason they came into that last open space was because the Bonneville Power line runs next to it. We saw deer and squirrels. We knew there were raccoons and mice. One morning before all the kids showed up, I saw a red fox. But as soon as we came, he hid out the rest of the day. There was a coyote that came down the trail on the overnight, looking for food. He found some eggs someone had left out and once he had that, he left. Two of us shone a flashlight on the trail and saw eyes in the dark, but that was enough to scare him off. In all those instances, the animals behaved as we would expect. They didn’t want to be around us anymore than we wanted to be close to them. They did not stalk us or even stay once we showed up or made noise in the dark. It scared them off and that is normal behavior.
What Vic describes is a brown bear that was acting in a way that is not normal. And anytime that happens, it is a concern and needs to be dealt with differently than the times when animals get close to humans and their pets. Finding out why that bear was so aggressive can be a key to preventing the loss of another beautiful dog or of people.
Vic, I’m so sorry for your loss. I love dogs, and yours was a beautiful one with such soulful eyes.
I am so sorry to hear of the loss of your dog and how it happened,kind of makes our worry about Coyotes getting our dogs bland in comparison.
Actually, coyots are a more likely danger, especially the crosses between coyote and stray dogs. They are less likely to fear humans, more likely to attack humans, and often work in packs to kill larger prey (humans would be on the large side). They are also more numerous at the city/wilderness interface. There are actually coyotes living within many city limits. (And the cities quietly condone it because the coyots keep down rats and stray animal populations.)
My guess is the bear went for the smallest food source (the dog) because it felt it had a better chance of winning.
First..my understanding, and sympathy..to the loss of the family member..that started this thread. An understanding of all the threads of historical knowledge, lived-life experience, cultural depth of ‘knowing’..and balencing that all humans..must seek, and attempt to..understand..on the trail to..genuine..artful ..balence..in all the lives which flow and ebb and surge..throughout ..changing times. Here..outside of the Eugene/Springfield area..about 5 months ago..while walking through a several hundred acre expanse of private orchards and assorted river woodlands..I was stalked..and followed by a coyote..and I was walking With..my 2..130ish pound each, Newfoundlands!! Needless to say..when yelling, waving my Register Guard newspaper (at 73..I read in the first dawn..having been a trappers daughter..knowing..what to look/listen/sense)..I abandoned the usual..go-to boot knife..yelled “kennel”..with great vigor..to indicate we were not challenging this threat..where as we always ‘stand and defend’..in other situations animal and human intrusions..and it followed at about 100 yards..to the edge of the farm house. My dogs did not want to run..but they understood my fear..and ran on either side of me..as a pack would. Oh how my heart ran with them..that early morning.A son was quickly summoned..we locked up the dogs..went down again..and it picked up the ‘stalking’..as soon as we appeared ..north of the barns..and was then shot and buried. It showed no sign of rabies..but..we put it deep..and ‘rocked’ the area..for safetys sake. Farms on our side..subdivisions across the road..and dogs are tossed out to ‘live happy’ as are cats..in this urban/wild..interface to a river. I still have a lifetime of experience..and I note the lack of wisdom..shown in the subdivisions..where animal food is left out for their assorted pets..24/7..means that there is no..natural balence now..and..no ..natural fear of humans..in the main.
I am so sorry.
Someone help me out so I don’t have to do researchon this particular query. As a youngster in Iowa I read all I could find in sporting magazines about what were classified as two,distinctive members of the bear clan. They had the “grizzly’ ursus horribilus and the coastal brown bears(kodiaks) as different species. The brown bears were much larger in size and had a distinctive square-shaped,blocky head,whereas grizzlies were smaller,roamed the more interior parts of the state and had ridiculously small hind feet and a disposition to match being inferior. Now as I understand it, both bears are considered to be the same species with the same latin moniker. It is totally irrelevant to the story at hand. I am just curious. My condolences to you and your family for the loss of your pet.
“The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It can weigh from 300 to 780 kilograms (660 to 1720 lb) and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family[2] and as the largest land-based predator.[3]
There are several recognized subspecies within the brown bear species. In North America, two types are generally recognized, the coastal brown bear and the inland grizzly, and the two types could broadly define all brown bear subspecies.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Bear
As the author pointed out, this was a very unique and rare occurrence. While I sympathize with the loss of a pet, especially so brutally and unexpected, I’m not sure that predator control should be influenced by this experience. There are a lot of questions as to why this bear was active at this time of year and why it attacked to kill. This appears to be an attack for food, not an attack out of self preservation or protection
Sorry about the loss of your dog, look forward to the rest of the story.
My heart to your heart UgaVic. I am sorry for your loss. I am thankful that you & your spouse live to tell us this important story.
And, a quiet word of caution, not fear, caution: A wise woman of the wilderness taught me to consider one issue with following guidelines/rules/established principles for viewing/approaching/finding yourself in the vicinity of wild animals is that the animal in your proximity hasn’t read the manual. (I paraphrase, but it means, err on the side of safety, dear friends.)
Thank you, Vic, for sharing this terrible loss for all to read, and thank you, Linda, for cross-posting it here. “Balance” in government and in wildlife management, as in other places, is hard to achieve. But when a teacher is mauled to death by a wolf pack near a rural town, and a bear that should be hibernating is out looking for someone, or something, to silently stalk and kill, and the caribou and moose populations are too thinned out for hunting in your part of the state, then things are seriously out of balance. The state board of game needs to address these concerns by enacting new policies that evolve from listening to the wisdom and experience of its residents, rather than to the wealthy, back-slapping hunters flying in and looking for trophy animals.
Thank AKM for posting this…it is a topic on all of our minds. The corporatists and hard core righties count on the complexities of rural issues to hide their motives–to strip Alaska’s resources for their own riches. They successfully get Alaskans to fight each other while the outside corporations come in and take what they wish with impunity. It’s what has happened to Alaska’s hunting industry, commercial fishing, not to mention oil, gas and mining. The other problem is that many of the Native Corporations have helped in this while claiming that it’s for the good of their shareholders…far from it…However, when outsiders (and many Alaskans) see the word “Native” attached to it, they assume (incorrectly) that these corporations are the same as the tribes, which are totally seperate entities.
But I digress…
Until Alaskans can let go of some of their ideologies and assumptions enough to work together for the good of each other, big business will continue to pick us clean.
I’m wondering how old this bear was. Could it have been a really hungry teen? Who didn’t get enough food in the summer/fall? A poacher? who tried to get it in the den, but it got away? I too, want to hear
the rest of the story. How much fat was on it when you skinned it out? Questions, questions.
I’m so sorry about your good dog. She’s chasing rabbits in heaven, just waiting to see you again.
We got the report from the trooper who came down and viewed the bear that he judged it to be about 4 years old.
We did not skin him out, resulting in a stern warning and more of a story than is room for here, BUT he was found to have a good fur/coat and fat layer. (We did have to cut his head off and send it in) He WAS undersized for that age which shows still more evidence that there was not a good supply of food when he was growing.
Poachers, when it comes to illegal hunting for Brown bear, would not be happening this time of the year. There can be an issue with them being killed in the summer, for claws and body parts but overall we have not heard of that in our area. Also it is hard to move around in this area without a plane, getting fuel, and being seen and reported. Although it is a huge area, by comparison to lower 48 areas, it is amazing how well things are observed when they are out of place.
Then there’s Barrow and other northern communities, where the polar bears don’t hibernate and are a threat.
i am saddened by the senseless death of your beautiful dog Vic. she was a lovely girl.
in my efforts to gain an understanding of the lives of Alaskans and the land in which they live i have been watching Alaska state Troopers and last night i sat down to view a documentary named Alaska:Silence and Solitude which focused on two men who spent three weeks in a place called Twin Lakes. there we met a man who had lived in rural isolation for 40 years. he was in his seventies; a well known photographer, and as healthy as can be. in fact he had never even had a cold. he had built the log home he lived in with his own hands. we saw footage of him building to his house all those years ago.
i saw him feeding birds out of the palm of his hands and bears and caribou roaming around.
it is people like this man and folks like Vic who ought ought to be in charge of making policy when it comes to wild life. at the very least they ought to be included in any decision making but i suppose that would make too much sense.
There is a reason this bear was out of hibernation and I doubt its origin is natural. I hope you find out why.
This story is extremely scary. And terribly sad for your family’s loss of a good dog. My dad lives in rural Maine and often has bears and moose in the rear of the property. He’s not getting any younger and I do tend to get concerned for him. However, he’s a good shot and knows how to use a gun. So, I guess he’s pretty prepared. As prepared as one can get living amongst the wildlife.
What folks need to understand is that Alaska is now at the point where we actually DO need humane, reasonable predator control…because of the way the corporate/industry-friendly Board of Game has handled Alaska’s wildlife resource. Tipping the scales in favor of trophy hunters favors those who are rich and from outside the state. Regular hunters in Alaska–if they can afford the expense at all–go for the regulation animals they can find. Trophy hunters will spare no expense to go for only the largest animals.
Linda you are very correct. What this leads to overall is a population of smaller animals and weaker herds. The biggest males are often taken out before the completion of the breeding season, thus leaving more females for the weaker males to mate with. There are some good studies that show over as short of a span as 20 years the average animal size and strength of the population can show a major impact.
In the case of Brown Bear, taking out the largest males, boars, allows for the poulation to grow n number. They, the large boars, often work as a natural ‘birth control’ in that they kill cubs, younger weaker males and those animals that can’t easily survive. More bears that all fight for a smaller food supply, as is the case in our area of Alaska, leads to starvation, undersized animals and more encounters with humans and domestic animals.
It is cruel all the way around and will in time take out the very opportunity the out of area hunters come to hunt, large trophy animals.
There has to be better ways to manage for a balance!
There is no such thing as balance in nature. There is also no need to conduct predator control because of a dog death. Cars kill dogs & people everday but we dont get rid of them do we? People who cant live with nature should move to the city and quit crying wolf, or bear in this case. Creating such paranoia is just plain ignorance.
Bless you Vic for going through this again in the writing.
I hope we can make enough noise to get the Board of Game to pay attention to policies and attitudes which have done no one any good- animal or human.
((((BB))))
Looking forward to more of the story…..