With the announcement last week that the 2005 fall brown bear registration hunt will not be opened this season, Jeff Selinger, area management biologist with Fish and Game in Soldotna, explained the reason it was nixed and offered up ways to improve the situation in the future.
“Basically, we had to close it to stay within management objectives,” Selinger said.
The brown bear hunt, which was scheduled for October 15-31 in Game Management Units 7 and 15, is managed for a three year average of human-caused mortalities that does not exceed 20 total bears, nor exceed eight female bears older than one year.
“As of today (Thursday), the total number of brown bears reported killed in 2005 is 17 bears including seven females,” Selinger said.
However, Selinger was quick to point out that this number does not include bears that they know are being killed and not reported, or, those that have been shot, but whose fates were unknown.
“We have a report of a bear that was shot at and the people were fairly certain they hit it, but the carcasses wasn’t found.
“We also have some incidents where we suspect something went on, such as a report that came in of a bear dragging it’s hind end. It was being harassed by a dog, but it was to weak to even defend itself.
“Another report is of a bear with the lower jaw that looked broken, it was just hanging down, flopping,” Selinger said.
In his opinion, these incidents looked like the result of shootings, possibly, but there was no was to confirm this. Since no carcasses were found it was unknown if the bears even lived or died.
As such, Selinger said incidents such as these play into him being more conservative with decisions regarding brown bear management.
Despite these unfortunate events, Selinger said he believes the population of brown bears is doing well overall.
“All the information I have is that we have a healthy population of brown bears on the Kenai Peninsula,” he said.
Selinger said he doesn’t have an accurate population estimate, however, but he would be surprised if they’re were less than 250-300 brown bears living on the peninsula.
“I can’t say emphatically that there are no problems with the population, but all the anecdotal evidence indicates the population is healthy,” he said.
Selinger said accurate estimates are possible, but are stymied to two large problems: genetic mark and recapture studies are labor intensive and not cost effective — particularly within the existing budget, and second, the forest canopy is very dense which hinders aerial counting surveys of brown bears on the peninsula.
“A population estimate is only a snap shot in time anyway, and in my opinion, the total number of bears isn’t as important as obtaining data on the health of the population, which is the direction I would like to see future research go,” he said.
Selinger said it is important to have data on bears in a populations such as the composition of their sex, age, litter size, age of cub distribution and mortality to name just a few key aspects.
In addition to conducting research on the population, Selinger said it may also be time to think about revamping the brown bear hunt itself.
“In my opinion, the registration hunt isn’t working anymore. There’s too much interest and too few bears under the current management constraints,” Selinger said.
He added it may be time for the brown bear hunt to remain a registration hunt, but within multiple, bound areas - similar to existing sheep hunts — rather than having it be peninsula wide. Or, the brown bear hunt could be changed to become a drawing permit hunt.
Whatever changes are made, Selinger said they need to be initiated not by state officials, but by the general public at large.
“It’s a public resource. It’s not just mine, or Fish and Game’s — it’s a public resource so public input is extremely important. I’m open to all suggestions,” he said.
Although the Board of Game doesn’t meet to discuss Southcentral Alaska issues until March 2007, Selinger said now is the time to start generating ideas that may eventually become be proposals.
Selinger said Fish and Game is also devoted to reducing the numbers of human-caused mortalities for bears and the way to do that is for people to become more responsible for the area they live.
“We’re not trying to shove rules and regulations down people’s throat. We just want people to live with wildlife safely. We want the public to understand how to minimize attractants,” he said.
Selinger explained minimizing attracts means several things, such as having garbage in bear-proof containers and making frequent trips to the dump to haul it off.
Chest freezers full of fish, moose and other food, should be secured with locking latches. Native birds should be provided only with a bird bath and not seed and suet, especially in summer.
People can also make sure livestock — such as pigs, goats, chickens, rabbits — are protected with electric fencing and that livestock and pet feed is stored in a secure place.
Also, Selinger said one of the biggest ways to prevent problems is to remain vigilant in areas where the dumping of fish carcasses is known to occur, and to report people doing this to authorities immediately.
Most people are very good about preventing these kinds of problems, but even one bad apple can ruin it for everyone according to Selinger.
“A lot of times the person suffering from the problems isn’t the one that generated the problem. They’re suffering from what some neighbor nearby left out,” he said.
“For this to be successful, it takes everyone in a community working together,” he added.
Selinger said it can be done, based on the success of Bear Safe Neighborhood pilot programs (see related story in A section).
At times, not running right out to shoot, or tranquilize and relocate a bear, has made people mad at Selinger, but he said people have to learn to help themselves if they want help from Fish and Game.
“Responsible management means looking for long-term solutions. Killing the bear doesn’t address what’s causing the problem. The attractant is still there waiting for another bear to come through.
“We have to break the current cycle. If we want to see significant changes with nuisance bears we have to address the problem of attractants,” Selinger said.
