Imagine being able to tell your out-of-state friends and family members that one of your hobbies is training bears! It makes great cocktail conversation, too. Best of all, learning to train bears is easy and it takes less time than training the propane driver not to drive on the grass or the neighbor’s cat to stay out of your flowers.
"Most people don’t realize that, nine times out of 10, when a bear comes into a yard it is because something is attracting that bear and the bear is counting on a food reward," said Glenn Erickson, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, wildlife bureau chief. "If the bear receives a food reward it is being trained to enter yards just as surely as the family dog is being trained when it gets a biscuit each time it sits on command."
A lot of bears are getting into trouble and learning the wrong lessons these days partly because there are more bears and partly because more people are moving into bear country. FWP wildlife managers estimate that the black bear population in Montana is stable in most areas. Grizzly bears, under protection of the Endangered Species Act, are increasing in number and expanding into new areas.
Fortunately, because bears are so quickly trained, they can just as easily learn the right behavior and you can help. How?
"When food attractants are removed from a yard, and especially when neighbors work together to clear the neighborhood of food attractants, a bear will quickly learn there is no reward in hanging around and it will most likely move off," Erickson said. "In many cases, it is that easy."
So, how will you know that you’ve successfully trained your neighborhood bear? Simple, when you don’t see the bear anymore. Erickson says a ’well-trained’ bear is a bear that is rarely, if ever, spotted. This is the type of bear that is likely to live a long, happy life as well.
"The hardest part of our work with bears is the fact that people like to see bears and so they will knowingly or unknowingly continue to attract them," he says. "But for the bear, being seen, or worse—receiving food rewards—almost always leads to the bear’s eventual destruction. In effect, we’re loving them to death."
Erickson said people who remove bear attractants from their yards and educate their neighbors to do so too are the best kind of ’bear trainers,’ helping Montana’s bears to remain wild and free.
Two FWP brochures, Living With Black Bears and Living With Grizzly Bears, help identify food attractants and offer suggestions for living successfully in bear country.
For more information on how to distinguish black bears from grizzly bears see FWP’s web site at fwp.state.mt.us. Click on Hunting and then Black Bear Identification Training to take the black bear identification training course now required of all black bear hunters in Montana.
Many home next to Montana’s forests or wild lands may be within bear country, and bears occasionally wander into towns and neighborhoods searching for food. Anything people, or their pets, eat will attract bears. Bears learn quickly where to find these sources of food and make a habit of returning. People who live in or near bear habitat can prevent good bears from learning bad-bear behavior by eliminating bear attractants.
Around the Yard:
· Birdseed and hummingbird feeders should be hung 10 feet up and 4 feet out from the nearest trees and with a rope and pulley system for refilling them.
· Pet food should be stored inside and pets fed inside. If you must feed pets outdoors, sweep up any spilled food immediately and bring bowls in at night.
· Barbeque grills should be cleaned and stored after each use in a secure shed or garage.
· Fruit should be picked from trees when ripe and fallen fruit immediately collected. Do not allow fruit to rot on the ground.
· Compost piles should be limited to grass, leaves, and garden clippings, and turn piles regularly. Adding lime can reduce smells and help decomposition. Do not add food scraps. Kitchen scraps can be composted indoors in a worm box with minimum odor and the finished compost can later be added to garden soil.
· Gardens should be harvested immediately as vegetables, fruits and herbs mature. Locate gardens away from forests and shrubs that bears may use for cover. Do not use blood meal.
· Landscaping, especially clover and dandelion roots will attract bears. Use native plant landscaping whenever possible, and do not seed in clover.
· Beehives, honey and bee larvae are especially attractive to bars. If you keep hives, elevate them on bear-proof platforms
Garbage:
· Store garbage in bear-resistant garbage cans or dumpsters.
· Or, store food-related garbage in a secure building bears can’t get into.
· Store empty recyclables, such as pop cans, indoors—the sweet smells attract bears.
· Decrease odors by storing garbage in tightly tied, heavy-duty bags, and garbage cans with tight lids.
· Remove garbage regularly.
· Store especially smelly garbage, such as meat or fish scraps, in a freezer until they can be taken to a refuse site.
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