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Does science back up Alaska's policy of killing grizzly bears?Four years ago the Alaska Legislature offered Gov. Sarah Palin and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game a special deal: $400,000 to “educate” voters on predator control. The money -- spent mostly on a video, glossy brochures and public presentations -- was meant to persuade and reassure Alaskans that predator control is essential and effective. Firmly convinced he’s doing the right thing, the new director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation at Fish and Game, Corey Rossi, is taking predator control to new levels. For the first time since statehood, Alaska has targeted grizzly bears for large-scale population reductions, not by hunters but by agents of the state. The publicity campaign, Rossi, Governor Sean Parnell and the Alaska Legislature would like you to believe that scientific experts on predator and prey populations -- particularly the professional wildlife biologists and researchers with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game -- unanimously support killing bears to increase numbers of moose and caribou. But some of those experts have questioned the efficacy and advisability of reducing numbers of grizzly bears in a peer-reviewed article in the latest edition of the Journal of Wildlife Management. Trends in grizzly bear management and researchThe article, “Trends in Intensive Management of Alaska’s Grizzly Bears, 1980-2010,” summarizes changes in bear hunting regulations in northern, Interior and Western Alaska over the past three decades. The study area comprises 76 percent of the state. Outside the study area, in southern coastal areas like Southeast Alaska and the Alaska Peninsula, grizzly bears often have access to salmon. Because they eat lots of salmon, these bears tend to grow larger than those north of the Alaska Range. Although they are the same species, grizzlies that dwell in coastal areas are called brown bears, and have higher trophy value, especially to nonresident hunters who pay high fees and are required to spend tens of thousands of dollars on professional guides and related services. Brown bears are valuable game animals. They have influential commercial interests opposed to reducing their populations. But other grizzly bears have much less support from hunters and guides. Beginning in 1980, the Department of Fish and Game has attempted to reduce grizzly bear abundance in three-fourths of the state -- the study area -- by liberalizing hunting regulations. Fish and Game was serious about reducing the number of grizzly bears, but it tried to do so the traditional way, by increasing harvests by hunters. By the authors’ count, between 1995 and 2010 the Alaska Board of Game relaxed hunting regulations 124 times in the study area, primarily by increasing the number of bears a hunter was allowed to shoot in a one to four-year period, extending the hunting season, or waiving the $25 tag fee for resident hunters. During the same period the board restricted grizzly bear hunting on only two occasions. Before 1980, hunters were limited to one grizzly bear every four years. By 2007, over 99 percent of the study area allowed hunters at least one grizzly every year. In 1975-76 no place in the study area allowed grizzly bear hunting seasons of more than 100 days. By 2010-11 all of the study area was open to hunting at least 100 days, 68 percent of the area had seasons longer than 300 days, and grizzly bears could be hunted in 16 percent of the study area at least 350 days each year. These regulatory changes substantially increased the harvest of grizzly bears in the study area. The average annual harvest from 1976 to 1980 was 387 bears. By 2004-2008 the average annual harvest had reached 827 bears, an average increase of 4% per year. But hunter kills were considered to be insufficient in areas where moose or caribou populations were still deemed too low to satisfy the demand for human consumption. The states approach to bear caused calf mortality is unsuportable,. As anyone who spends much time in the field durring the spring will tell you that ,every bear does not kill moose and caribou calves,a much more effective controll mesure would be to employ two or three good proffessional hunters in traditional calving areas to selectivly harvest the bears doing most of the killing,. The current approach would be like me killing every magpie i see no mater where i am,rather than setting a trap for the one that roosts on my ridgepole and craps on my door mat I loved the article! I am a UAA student journalist, and I am doing a research paper about this article. I would love a chance to get some personal reflection from you. If you could contact me at jlb_5@hotmail.com. I would greatly appreciate your time. JennyB seems to me that the cycle of life is already controlled and needs no help from us.. I don't think we as human beings have a right to meddle in what has worked for so long before we were here.. our presence will be reacted to by this force, and we need no more legislation to control it.. Rick draws out only some of the non-science used in Alaska's wildlife management. One of the basic flaws of Alaska's management is the lack of funding by general funds. Sale of licenses and the attraction of Federal excise taxes on sporting goods (Pitman- Roberts funds), is the vast majority of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Wildlife "Conservation". Non-Residents pay the highest license fees and are there for the real priority user group....to provide the fiscal budget of around 30 million dollars. To get large non-resident participation, resident hunters and especially affluent politicly connected ones need to be provided hunting opportunity also. There are biological problems with excessive harvest opportunity for all of these hunters that focus on the largest antlered bull moose and caribou. Healthy large bulls that are fit breeders are then fully extirpated as they are the largest antlered. Alaska's regulations for caribou do not protect any of the best breeding males, and moose regulations only protect 2-3 year of bulls. Even biologically recognized male to female ratios are ignored in many areas of Alaska. Many times there are only 25-50 % of the necessary amounts of bulls, and they are all young. Moose and Caribou are polygamous breeders, biologically selecting for strong sire-ship. In healthy conditions 6-12 year old bulls defend and breed multiple females. These older bulls have the fat reserves and are the strong survivors. Late born moose and caribou calves, and poor pedigree are the result of excessive harvest of all the best bulls. The resultant calves are smaller and weaker in the real winter world of deep snow and predators. Bears and wolves catch smaller and weaker prey at a higher rate. Predators cull smaller prey on average, those that would otherwise die from deep snow. If human harvest selects out all the best and arbitrarily breeds for weakness, the moose and caribou populations decline. If management errors, breeding moose and caribou for reduced sized the cumulative bear, moose and human factor is too burdensome for the prey. When you look at the areas that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the Alaska Board of Game are implementing Intensive Management programs, the moose and caribou populations were far below healthy recognized biological permitters. Without real State of Alaska funding of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Wildlife Conservation, Alaskans will continue to see unscientific biology implemented. The Department of Fish and Game has had to use political science to manipulate pubic support of unsound management, to continue the existence of the agency. Alaskans who are not scientifically minded will continue to see all our wildlife populations decline from lack of health and integrity. Alaskans must understand that almost complete reliance on non-resident and Federal funds for management at the current costs of operating an agency, can no longer be sustained by the wildlife resource. We will continue to invent experiments against our wildlife until we have a shamble of what Alaska once had....Robing Peter to pay Paul will leave us biologically bankrupt. The premice of your comment is corect in thatthe way Alaska funds fish and game is way outdated by our population increaseand escalating use of the resorce,resedent Alaskans have had a free ride for too long and the fact that tag/licence fees go into the general fund means that adf&g's budget must go through the legeslature meands thast it may suffer due to politicsyour assumption that selecvtiv hunting of older bullsc has a significant effect on the herd health and population has not ben born out by any significant studies in the past, it is something that is assumed to be a significant factor by most who do not like hunting as a mannegment toolthe condition of most populations now can be traced back to severasl factors that all came into play at once, 8 years of the knowels admin, ment little to no predetor controll, durring that same time ,an explosion of unguided non resedent drop off hunting, and the loss of a guide area controll system,(1987)as well as several years of hard winters, Governor Murkowski, brought the states atention back into focus and about the same time the legeslature compleated some efforts to bring commercial pressure under controll,unfortunatly the health of our wildlife populationds hinges directly on who our governor is and what constituency base he or she listens to I know that areas with lots of caribou and lots of wolves also have lots of wolverine, and areas with high bear densities and a large ungulate population also have lots of wolverine but take away the ungulate killing predators and suddenly you have few wolverine... toppling the food chain from a top down perspective is foolish... I love killing bears and wolves and wolverines, but to deplete one or the other to artificially bolster ungulate populations seems unrealistic and naive. Very good expose. My question for state predator control advocates would be: Would efforts to boost moose populations in areas of borderline habitat (which is the case over most of the "problem" areas) be more successful by focusing on improving habitat/browse availability rather than killing bears? You can kill all the bears, but if the food isn't there for the moose, the "fix" is likely to be minimally successful at best. Historically, forest fires scoured the Susitna Valley every 40 years or so, culling old growth and producing excellent new-growth browse for moose. We're getting too good at putting out fires now and new growth is rare. Perhaps game managers should look more closely at this aspect? More food, better habitat = more moose. Hbitat manipulation and predetor regulation are tools that go hand in hand, there are parts of the state that now suport moose populastions that did not in past generations,this food sorce was not always available in parts of the western intirior, and wolf controll meseres of the 50's-60's alloed mose to move that wayin significant numbers, resulting in some of the best moose hunting ever There is also a Dr. Gordon Orians who serves on the Board of Directors (emeritus) of the World Wildlife Federation (World Wide Fund for Nature). Is this the same individual as the chairman of National Resource Council? The WWF advocacy commitment raises questions about the scientific independence of its Directors. WWF has recently been found involving themselves in the IPCC work, then subsequently having their input identified as scientifically spurious. That wouldn't be an isolated incident. Certainly, if Dr Orians sat on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association, or was active with a professional association of Alaska's trophy hunt industry ... his ability to act independently within the NRC would be called into question (eg, by the WWF, etc). I accept the differential valuation of animal populations of the same species, living in different places & contexts. I wouldn't think coastal grizzlies and Interior grizzlies need to be handled the same, based on the fact that they are the same species. We have examples in which advocates and wildlife and science professionals, ask that different populations of species be handled differently - and in some cases that is what we do. That this arises with grizzlies doesn't seem like an irregularity. I wouldn't expected unanimity within the ranks of Alaska's Fish & Game professionals. I understand that some have brought a pronounced 'Green' point of view to their job. Others not so much. Everyone involved being Homo sapiens, the mix and possibility of friction sounds pretty normal. Scientocracy probably isn't in the cards. The further into the realm of public policy we move, the less the 'authority' of science pertains. Science is really on it's game, learning & communicating what's going on with say two populations of grizzlies. How society chooses to value those two grizzly cohorts (or the information supplied by the professionals), though, moves us outside the science purview. Excellent article Rick. Rick, thanks for bringing attention to the JWM article. One thing Rick didn't bring up in his piece is that that Unit 16 bear control and bear snaring program is ostensibly to benefit Alaskans by putting more moose out there to put food on the tables of Alaskans. This spring the Board of Game for the first time ever legalized the trapping of grizzly bears as well in part of Unit 16, prior to that any grizzly bears caught in black bear snares had to be released (if possible) and they could not be kept. The rationale for doing that was to help what was still a dwindling moose population. At the same time though the same board for the first time in a long while opened up moose hunting (unlimited, no permit required) to nonresident hunters in Unit 16. With all due respect to the Board, that sure sent the exact opposite message to this hunter and trapper about what this bear control program was all about. So now we are trapping grizzly bears in Alaska to benefit nonresident hunters. Pshaw. The legislature and the people need to wake up to what is going on. Alaska is on the verge of legalizing public trapping of black and grizzly bears outside any formal bear control programs. Such a proposal, submitted believe it or not by our own F&G dept, will be before the Board at next spring's Region III meeting in Fbks. Do hunters and trappers really want to see that happen? This one doesn't. On top of that, the proposal if passed as written would also allow nonresident hunters (under supervision of a licensed guide) to participate in black and grizzly bear trapping. Yet again we are being sold a bill of goods, this isn't about putting more moose and caribou on the tables of Alaskans. It could be that in some areas grizzly bear control is warranted. If that is the case then it needs to be done under a .125 formal predation control plan and be done in such a way that there are strict provisions on permittees and oversight by the dept. And it needs to be done in ways that efficacy (or lack of) is scientifically proven. I never thought I'd see Alaska and especially our own F&G Dept advocate for the snaring of bears by the public. Back in 2008, the Dept stated that it opposed the trapping/snaring of grizzly bears, even as part of a grizzly bear control program. Ask yourself what changed since then, why fifty years of Dept opinion did a 180 basically overnight. Such a shame that what was one of the most respected F&G agencies in the world has been turned into a political body that stifles scientific opinion and prevents biologists and managers from speaking out. If Alaska continues to treat bears like vermin it will end up in an ugly protracted political/leagle battle against hunters/trappers and the non hunting world that understands the tremendos value of bears,the whole controversy is unfortunately spiraling ourt of controll and does not need to Excellent essay as usual by this learned, experienced wildlife manager. Funny, how the predator program has been lacking in a lot of areas as our hunt unit 13, up by Eureka. I was fortunate to kill a bull moose last year and in two days there were 10 different Bears on that carcass. There were two bears and a couple wolves killed in the area. We saw 10 cow moose none of them had any calf with them. Calf's are they food of choice for predators. Thank God for our predator control program, why don't you guys get out and see what is needed before condemning it! Guess the truth hurts. Its apparent by the -13 you've scored according to the "experts." Liberal predator control is a good thing. Since when is there a cost-effectiveness standard for most or any government program? |
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