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Bear Scare
by:
Heather Smith Thomas |
Predators are a constant problem for
some stockmen, and a sporadic problem for others, depending on
the region. Bears are an unpredictable predator; some ranchers
co-exit with black bears for decades without having any cattle
losses, while others have bad experiences with an occasional
individual that gets into the habit of killing livestock.
Ranchers who live in areas where grizzly bears roam are more
wary of bears, because these large predators can easily kill
calves or adult cattle if they take a mind to do so.
Tom McDonnell, Executive Vice President of the Idaho Cattle
Association, has a leased ranch in southeastern Wyoming (60
miles from the Colorado border and 60 miles from the Nebraska
border), where a large black bear gave him problems last summer,
killing calves. “The very fact there was a bear in that area was
a surprise to everyone. I found two calves killed on my BLM
range. The bear was coming onto the bedgrounds at night, and
broke the calves’ backs while they were lying down. These calves
were grabbed right behind the shoulder—a classic bear kill,”
says McDonnell.
He called Wildlife Services after he found the carcasses. “The
odd thing was that my place is 40 miles from the mountains, way
out in the prairie. The first thing I thought was that it was a
cougar, because it would be strange to have a bear in that
location. I talked to a lot of old-timers and no one had ever
seen bears there,” he says.
Wildlife Service personnel brought a live trap to try and catch
the bear, using donuts as a lure. “The bear walked round and
round the trap and would not go in it. My theory is that he’d
been trapped before and relocated. Which means he’d probably
caused problems somewhere else. But turning him loose this far
from the mountains was shocking. I ended up losing 3 calves to
him before he disappeared. The Wildlife Services people were
never able to trap him,” says McDonnell.
“He was a very efficient killer and I think he had done this
before. He’d sneak onto the bedground at night while the cattle
were bedded. One of the calves he killed was close to 600 pounds
and he devoured most of it—the entire hindquarters—in a couple
of days, and eventually ate the rest of it. It’s amazing how
much a bear can eat. I tracked him several days after he killed
the 3 calves, but never caught up with him. He had a huge track
and the federal trappers told me he probably weighed about 400
pounds.”
There are many old homesteads in that area and most of them have
some type of berry bushes or chokecherries growing on them. “I
found his dung at a number of these old homesteads. We don’t
know if he was migrating or was transplanted, but of course the
Game and Fish people told me he had to be migratory. Yet the way
he acted around the trap, I am pretty sure he had been
relocated,” explains McDonnell.
Some ranchers in Wyoming are having problems with grizzly bears
moving out from Yellowstone Park. “They are getting farther from
the mountains, onto the plains, but we have to remember that
historically they were a plains animal. If you read Lewis and
Clark’s journals, you’ll see they gained a lot of respect for
these huge bears along the river on the plains,” says McDonnell.
The amount of depredation losses due to bears can vary a lot
from state to state, and from year to year. In Idaho, for
instance, sheep and lamb losses to bears in 2005 totaled 900
head. In 2006 it was 600 head, and 700 head were lost in 2007.
Kent Drake, Predator Management Coordinator (Wyoming Department
of Agriculture) says that there are surveys in each state that
keep track of the number of calves and lambs killed. He says
that part of the reason statistics may vary from year to year
and state to state is due to the differences in the amount of
predator control that can be accomplished. Due to budget cuts,
some years there just isn’t adequate control.
“For bear control, there are also some areas where we are
challenged geographically and politically. In some places the
bears, especially grizzlies, are protected. We have some
programs that are very unique in those districts, where you
obviously can’t shoot any bears, but we can still do some things
to deter them. One management tactic is cleaning up all
carcasses of animals that have died, putting them in one
location rather than leaving them to attract bears,” says Drake.
Gene Hardy, a Wyoming rancher, says that grizzlies are becoming
a bigger problem on the west side of the state. “If there is a
problem bear they will actually kill it, but for they most part
they try to capture and relocate them. Usually the bear beats
them back to wherever it came from, or causes trouble in the new
location. The grizzly is now delisted but our Game and Fish has
not authorized any hunt permits, even though the grizzly here is
now classified as a trophy game animal,” says Hardy.
Timing the grazing use of certain areas is also important to
avoid contact with bears. Ranchers may try to keep their
livestock somewhat protected and out of those areas when the
bears are coming out in the spring and are hungry. Some range
areas can be used more safely at a later date. If a certain bear
becomes a problem, the Wildlife Service will try to trap and
relocate that bear. There is also a compensation program
available for confirmed kills by grizzly bears, since these
predators are protected.
In Colorado, some ranchers have problems with bears and can be
compensated for confirmed bear kills. Kills by lions and bears
can be compensated through the Colorado Division of Wildlife, if
verified. But according to the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association,
the listed number of kills is artificially low to start with
because of this fact.
Utah had an exceptionally bad year for bear depredation a couple
of years ago, due to drought and lack of food when the bears
came out of hibernation. “Our bear problem varies from year to
year (moreso than with cougars) because it’s mainly a function
of how much food is there for them during the spring,” explains
Mike Linnell (USFWS). If the bears don’t have an abundance of
food they will look to other sources.
“This last year we had a better winter with good snow pack. In
the spring we didn’t seem to have the same amount of bear
problems. It also varies by location. Some areas just have a lot
more bears,” says Linnell. It can be very unpredictable,
however.
“Last year we had bears go through some sheep that we’d put into
a certain area and we were afraid the bears would start killing
sheep. But we never had any problems in that particular
situation. Those bears didn’t get into the habit of killing
sheep. But if they hang around long enough, they will. That’s
why it’s important that we just target the individual animals
that are actually killing stock,” says Linnell.
Problem bears in Utah are always killed rather than relocated.
“We’ve found that if they’ve done it once, they will continue to
kill livestock. If they are teaching their young how to kill,
they will pass that behavior on to the next generation, and it’s
a learned behavior,” he says.
Losses in cattle and sheep often depend on where they are.
“We’ve had some range allotments that have converted from sheep
to cattle. If these are areas where there are quite a few bears,
the cattle will suffer losses, too. There are other allotments
where we don’t have any problems. It’s generally worst in
certain areas where there’s a higher density of bears,” explains
Linnell.
A rancher (or an employee, or a member of his family) can
legally shoot a bear in Utah if it is harassing livestock. If he
reports the shooting within 72 hours to the game department or
Department of Wildlife Resources he can then buy a tag and
legally keep the bear hide or meat. Utah also has a compensation
program for bear kills. “They pay out 100 percent of the market
value of the loss, but only if it’s a confirmed bear kill. If
it’s a newborn lamb or calf, the compensation is full market
value of that animal, determined at the end of the year,” says
Linnell. Thus the rancher will receive payment for what that
animal would have brought at market with the rest of the lambs
or calves.
The compensation program is a help, but the challenge is
confirming the loss because there are many instances in which
the carcass is not found, or found too long after the fact to
determine cause of death. “Most of the bear kills are in summer
on Forest Service allotments. By the time you find the carcass
it is often deteriorating from the heat. A bear may be coming in
to scavenge the carcass but you don’t know if it was the actual
killer,” says Linnell.
“Sometimes we can tell, and sometimes we can’t. We have to be
very honest in our assessments. Ranchers usually accept our
conclusions because we’ve been very consistent in our
determinations. We have a good working relationship with
ranchers in Utah because we try to be honest and objective. But
the compensation program never fully gets them what they’ve lost
because in many instances no one gets there in time to know,”
says Linnell.
Bears are a problem in parts of Oregon. Dave Williams, Oregon
division of USFWS, says bears are not a huge problem for
livestock; they have a larger impact on deer fawns and elk
calves. “The biggest economic impact of bears in Oregon is a
learned behavior, damaging trees. We have a very short
hibernation season on the west side of the state and when bears
come out of hibernation there isn’t much food. They’ve learned
to strip the bark off fast-growing trees the timber companies
have planted. The bears live off the carbohydrates and sugars in
the soft wood beneath the bark. They may live off that almost
entirely for a few weeks until berries ripen and deer fawns
arrive or other food sources become available. The damage in
western Oregon to trees is tremendous, causing losses to timber
companies estimated at about 11.5 million dollars per year,”
says Williams. Oregon has between 25,000 and 30,000 black bears,
with more than half of them living on the west side of the
state—which has most of the timber production.
Bears are not a very large problem in California for cattle, and
there are not as many sheep producers in that state as there
used to be. Bruce Hafenfeld (past president of the California
Cattlemen’s Association) says black bears are generally not a
problem. “They are carrion eaters and may eat the carcass of an
animal that died of other causes, and once in awhile become
aggressive and kill a calf or yearling, but this is not a big
issue. We don’t have grizzlies here,” he says. Bear problems in
California are usually handled through Wildlife Services or Fish
and Game.
Craig Coolahan, Wildlife Services, says they have specialists
available in most California counties to assist livestock
producers with any depredation problems they might have with
bears. “Bears are a game animal here and can be legally taken
during the hunting season if a person buys a tag. If bears are
encountered in the act of inflicting injury or killing livestock
they may be taken immediately by the owner of the livestock or
the owner’s employee. If encountered in the act, and taken, this
needs to be reported to the Department of Fish and Game no later
than the next working day,” says Coolahan. A bear taken in this
manner would remain the property of the state. The person
shooting it is not allowed to keep the hide or meat.
There is also a provision in the law that allows any owner or
tenant of land or property being damaged or destroyed by a bear
to apply to the department for a permit to take that bear. “Most
of the time you would not get a permit unless there is actual
damage or loss,” explains Coolahan.
“The most common control method used by Wildlife Services for
bears is the culvert trap. These bears are not relocated. When
trapped, they are destroyed. We have a state policy against
relocation unless the department requests it,” he says. A bear
that has been known to kill livestock is generally not relocated
because this simply moves the problem somewhere else.
“We also use leg snares, which a private individual can also
use, if authorized by the department. Firearms and trailing
hounds can also be used. There was an annual quota on numbers of
bears taken by sportsmen in California and when that quota was
met the season closed. They recently lifted the quota, because
most years it has barely been reached. The amount of time and
effort it takes to notify everyone to shut the season down (near
the end of it) was one of the reasons they decided to do away
with the quota,” explains Coolahan.
Sidebar
Predatory Birds
Even though the major predators for livestock are coyotes,
wolves, cougars and bears, some livestock producers also have
problems with eagles and ravens. In Utah, for instance, golden
eagles kill quite a few lambs, and some calves. “We’ve had an
increase in eagle attacks, in recent years, with golden eagles
carrying off lambs or attacking calves,” says Mike Linnell (USFWS).
“Eagles grab the calves by the skull or the back of the neck,
puncturing the spinal column and killing the calf. They can’t
carry off a calf, but will eat it there on the spot,” he says.
“Recently the Utah legislature set aside money for eagle
control, starting in 2007. After bear and lion compensation is
completely paid out, if there is any money left over they will
pay for eagle losses. There were a lot of claims last year, but
there’s been a budget reduction this year. Last year they had
$200,000 set aside in Utah for compensation but the legislature
reduced it to $140,000. Typically they pay out about $150,000
each year for bear and lion kills, so this year there probably
won’t be any compensation available for eagle kills,” says
Linnell.
“We’ve done some relocation of eagles, capturing them and taking
them somewhere there’s no lambing or calving going on, so we are
not just relocating the problem. I don’t know how much good it
does, and it’s very time consuming because we have to check the
traps so frequently. We have to be right there so the birds are
not injured or dying in the traps,” he explains.
Another problem on calving grounds is ravens. “They will fly in
when a cow is down and calving, and peck the eyes of the cow or
the newborn calf. They always go for the eyes,” says Linell.
Ravens can kill an animal that way, and then keep eating on it.
Cows seem to have an instinctive protective response to
predatory birds, often bellowing and running around to find
their calves whenever large birds like eagles, ravens or crows
fly near the calving area or bedgrounds/feedgrounds where there
are a lot of young calves. Even after calves are several weeks
old, cows become very upset and frantic when these birds appear.
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