What wakes a bear up?
The days of autumn have floated by and winter at present is mild where I am. I've been content with the progress made through the last year. The effects of my efforts have provided sanctuary for 8 former performing bears and have seen 12 orphan bear cubs rehabilitated and now they are in hibernation. I doubt that I would much have stirred, keeping my days quietly at ease.
Dreams have been comfortable until last week. I was made awake by a dream of hunters stalking me. That stirred me and immediately there comes the news that a hunt for bears will take place in October. I'm on the Wildlife department mailing list. It was a disturbing dream and I have tried to satisfy myself that the twenty bears they will take will not hurt the recolonizing population of bears in this state. I slept uneasily that next night and yet another dream comes, waking me. This time I am witness to a Mother Bear with her cubs walking a path coming towards me. Above and to my left I hear the crack of a rifle and see to my horror, the Mother Bear drop having been shot. I see the cubs worry over her and as I focus upon that horrid sight I am brought to full wakefulness.
I immediately called the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation once it was 9am and asked about the hearings which will be held beginning on the 12th and taking place in several cities that week by the department. I am shuffled around a bit until I finally get a person who can respond to me. I state, "There doesn't seem to be any provision for Mothers with cubs in this proposal'" I am told, the cubs will do just fine without their mothers, so, shooting a mother even with cubs alongside, is alright with the department!
This is not accurate. Cubs will weigh between 40 and 70 lbs by October and deprived of their mother they have very little chance of surviving into the following year. One of the cubs which I have labored to help is from Idaho. It appeared to be a cub, very thin, ematiated and in general poor condition. It is a solitary cub which against odds survived into spring however, it was not doing well enough and was taken in by Idaho Black Bear Rehab (which our foundation helps fund) and though he is a yearling, he got along fine with the other cubs and is now hibernating with a fresh chance at life as a bear in the wild.
Mothers prepare that first den and in that den they cuddle their young. The teach their young how to find a good den site, they afford protection for that cub into the next spring and those cubs will stay with their mothers up until breeding season in July at which point the cubs begin to establish home ranges of their own generally within the mothers range where she has shown them to forage. Siblings will come together now and then and even play together through the following years.
In the 28 states which allow for bear hunting the majority of them do not allow mothers with cubs to be taken. Killing the mother is essentially also killing the cubs. Those cubs have a 1 in 10 chance to actually survive through hibernation. In Tennessee Mothers with cubs are illegal to take and a cub is defined as a bear weighing less than 75 lbs. Because it is not easy to distinguish between a female and a male bear, both are hunted, however, a mother with cubs is easy to see in autumn for they will be about a third the size of the mother and will be at her side. If you see a large bear with two or three smaller bears in tow, there can be no doubt it is a mother bear! It's a no brainer!
So, now my rest is disturbed, I'm not sleeping well at all and I have been trying to call everyone I know who can show up at one of those meetings to implore the wildlife department to make provisions for mothers with cubs. Two of the cubs which we provided veternarian care and shelter and food for this last year are from Arkansas and are now returned to Arkansas and in hibernation. Since we've begun our programs none of the orphans have been a source of problems for people nor have any of the cubs over the past four years been taken by hunters. They have succeeded with a new lease on life. This has much to do with the method of rehabilitation and the manner in which the cubs are not allowed contact with people.
If any of you are in Oklahoma, if you can make one of the hearings by the Wildlife Department and plead for a provision to protect these mother bears, please do so. The hearings begin Jan 12th and run through the 15th across the state. I can provide locations and times of the meetings and will be happy to give that information to you. Our bear population is a re-colonizing population. Bears were always a part of Oklahoma and have only in the last 20 years begun to make their way back to former territories. Taking a mother with cubs in a population which is below 500 bears is a serious danger to the continued growth of that population.
Bears are important to the ecosystem. Bears help create diversity of plants carrying fuit bearing plant seeds, they root up old growth making room for new, forage insects from rotted trees and enhance the health of lands upon which they live. If there were more bears the pine bark beetle may never have been able to decimate the conifer trees of the west as a black bear diet consists of nearly 90% insects!
I shall be in Jenks on the 12th to make my solitary plea on behalf of these mother bears, mine should not be the only voice lifted in this effort else I shall fail. I shall do the best I can, the time is short now, without someone speaking up, not just myself, the dream I experienced will become a reality. I do not think I may rest well until this issue is passed.
I hope to see some of you at Scarlets Mid Winter Renaissance Faire down in OKC. :::: worried hugs all around ::::
Dreams have been comfortable until last week. I was made awake by a dream of hunters stalking me. That stirred me and immediately there comes the news that a hunt for bears will take place in October. I'm on the Wildlife department mailing list. It was a disturbing dream and I have tried to satisfy myself that the twenty bears they will take will not hurt the recolonizing population of bears in this state. I slept uneasily that next night and yet another dream comes, waking me. This time I am witness to a Mother Bear with her cubs walking a path coming towards me. Above and to my left I hear the crack of a rifle and see to my horror, the Mother Bear drop having been shot. I see the cubs worry over her and as I focus upon that horrid sight I am brought to full wakefulness.
I immediately called the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation once it was 9am and asked about the hearings which will be held beginning on the 12th and taking place in several cities that week by the department. I am shuffled around a bit until I finally get a person who can respond to me. I state, "There doesn't seem to be any provision for Mothers with cubs in this proposal'" I am told, the cubs will do just fine without their mothers, so, shooting a mother even with cubs alongside, is alright with the department!
This is not accurate. Cubs will weigh between 40 and 70 lbs by October and deprived of their mother they have very little chance of surviving into the following year. One of the cubs which I have labored to help is from Idaho. It appeared to be a cub, very thin, ematiated and in general poor condition. It is a solitary cub which against odds survived into spring however, it was not doing well enough and was taken in by Idaho Black Bear Rehab (which our foundation helps fund) and though he is a yearling, he got along fine with the other cubs and is now hibernating with a fresh chance at life as a bear in the wild.
Mothers prepare that first den and in that den they cuddle their young. The teach their young how to find a good den site, they afford protection for that cub into the next spring and those cubs will stay with their mothers up until breeding season in July at which point the cubs begin to establish home ranges of their own generally within the mothers range where she has shown them to forage. Siblings will come together now and then and even play together through the following years.
In the 28 states which allow for bear hunting the majority of them do not allow mothers with cubs to be taken. Killing the mother is essentially also killing the cubs. Those cubs have a 1 in 10 chance to actually survive through hibernation. In Tennessee Mothers with cubs are illegal to take and a cub is defined as a bear weighing less than 75 lbs. Because it is not easy to distinguish between a female and a male bear, both are hunted, however, a mother with cubs is easy to see in autumn for they will be about a third the size of the mother and will be at her side. If you see a large bear with two or three smaller bears in tow, there can be no doubt it is a mother bear! It's a no brainer!
So, now my rest is disturbed, I'm not sleeping well at all and I have been trying to call everyone I know who can show up at one of those meetings to implore the wildlife department to make provisions for mothers with cubs. Two of the cubs which we provided veternarian care and shelter and food for this last year are from Arkansas and are now returned to Arkansas and in hibernation. Since we've begun our programs none of the orphans have been a source of problems for people nor have any of the cubs over the past four years been taken by hunters. They have succeeded with a new lease on life. This has much to do with the method of rehabilitation and the manner in which the cubs are not allowed contact with people.
If any of you are in Oklahoma, if you can make one of the hearings by the Wildlife Department and plead for a provision to protect these mother bears, please do so. The hearings begin Jan 12th and run through the 15th across the state. I can provide locations and times of the meetings and will be happy to give that information to you. Our bear population is a re-colonizing population. Bears were always a part of Oklahoma and have only in the last 20 years begun to make their way back to former territories. Taking a mother with cubs in a population which is below 500 bears is a serious danger to the continued growth of that population.
Bears are important to the ecosystem. Bears help create diversity of plants carrying fuit bearing plant seeds, they root up old growth making room for new, forage insects from rotted trees and enhance the health of lands upon which they live. If there were more bears the pine bark beetle may never have been able to decimate the conifer trees of the west as a black bear diet consists of nearly 90% insects!
I shall be in Jenks on the 12th to make my solitary plea on behalf of these mother bears, mine should not be the only voice lifted in this effort else I shall fail. I shall do the best I can, the time is short now, without someone speaking up, not just myself, the dream I experienced will become a reality. I do not think I may rest well until this issue is passed.
I hope to see some of you at Scarlets Mid Winter Renaissance Faire down in OKC. :::: worried hugs all around ::::