By Richard Knox<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night the New Hampshire Fish & Game Department trapped a black bear on Eastman (formerly Squaw) Cove after the beast had invaded two camps in the neighborhood \u2014 in one case twice over a 2-day period.<\/p>\n
The bear had been hanging around the neighborhood in late June and early July. But it became especially emboldened this week, entering one camp on Intervale Pond Road in Center Sandwich at 3:20 AM Tuesday and attempting to break in again at 9:10 PM Wednesday. Owners were in residence both times. It had also rummaged around a nearby camp Tuesday night, attracted by the smell of garbage in a closed shed.<\/p>\n
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The animal\u2019s visit to the garbage enclosure led the camp\u2019s owner to callthe Fish & Game\u2019s Wildlife Division. A team led by bear technician Becky Fuda placed a bear trap next to one of the camps on Wednesday. It\u2019s basically a large culvert mounted on a snowmobile trailer and baited with pastries. The bear tripped the trap at 9:52 PM that night, only a short time after its second visit to the nearby camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very strict bear-conflict protocol\u201d that calls for trapping nuisance bears after a home invasion or property damage, says Dan Bailey, Fish & Game\u2019s bear project leader. \u201cOur reaction is to attempt to trap and remove that bear \u2013 meaning euthanize \u2013 because typically it will continue that behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very strict bear-conflict protocol,\u201d says Dan Bailey, Fish & Game\u2019s bear project leader. \u201cOur reaction is to attempt to trap and remove that bear \u2013 meaning euthanize \u2013 because typically it will continue that behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
To euthanize a bear, technicians immobilize the creature on-site with drugs. After removal to a Fish & Game facility the bear is put under anesthetic and rendered unconscious before killing is accomplished with a single shot to the head. \u201cIt\u2019s the most humane and recommended approach,\u201d Bailey says. \u201cIt does not feel anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bailey says bear home invasions are very unusual. \u201cWe only see four or five of these incidents a year, out of a New Hampshire bear population of 6,000.\u201d Although local residents may feel bear sightings are on the increase, Bailey says the state\u2019s bear management\u2019s Central Region, where Sandwich is located, has had a very stable population in recent years. \u201cIt\u2019s about half-a-bear per square mile, right where we want it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statewide bear population goal is about 4,700 animals. The population in the North Country and White Mountain regions raise the state average.<\/p>\n
The bear population is managed \u201cmainly through hunting\u201d in the autumn, Bailey says.<\/p>\n
Black bear encounters involving injury or death to humans are exceedingly rare. \u201cThe 750,000 black bears of North America kill fewer than one person per year on average,\u201d says Lynn Rogers, founder and principal biologist of the North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota. Rogers, sometimes called Jane Goodall of bears, is the senior author of more peer-reviewed scientific articles on black bears than any researcher.<\/p>\n
Rogers notes that black bears have killed 61 people since 1900. \u201cMy chances of being killed by a domestic dog, bees, or lightning are vastly greater,\u201d he says. \u201cMy chances of being murdered are 60,000 times greater.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rare offensive attacks by black bears generally occur in remote areas where the animals have the least human contact, according to the North American Bear Center.<\/p>\n
The reason black bears are typically shy has partly to do with hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, Rogers says. \u201cThey evolved alongside such powerful predators as saber-toothed cats, American lions, dire wolves and short-faced bears, all of which became extinct only about 12,000 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlack bears were the only one of these that could climb trees,\u201d he adds, \u201cso (they) survived by staying near trees and developing the attitude: Run first and ask questions later. The timid ones passed on their genes to create the black bear of today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rogers used to think black bears were very dangerous, but his thinking has evolved with experience. \u201cI now interpret aggressive displays by black bears in terms of their fear rather than mine,\u201d he says. \u201cTheir most common aggressive displays are merely rituals they perform when they are nervous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Avoiding nuisance bear incidents is largely a matter of common sense, Bailey of NH Fish & Game says. Not putting food waste in an accessible place, keeping grills clean of grease, closing and locking doors at night (bears can smell food through open windows, of course), not putting bird feeders out in wooded areas when bears are out and about.<\/p>\n
\u201cBears are very smart,\u201d he says. \u201cThey will return to a property if they find an attractant.\u201d<\/p>\n
If a bear is becoming worrisome, wildlife management specialists can be reached at any hour at Fish & Game\u2019s Nuisance Wildlife line: 603-223-6832. A 911 call will get routed to the appropriate responder.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Richard Knox is a veteran science journalist who lives in Sandwich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Richard Knox On Wednesday night the New Hampshire Fish & Game Department trapped a black bear on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":112652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-112651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114958549902363432","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}