Many of the anti-hunting/animal-rights groups often refer to Dr. Lynn Rogers, Minnesota based so-called bearcourse/bearstudy workshop wherein people can learn to co-exist with black bears.

These courses generally run (4) days and cost approximately $1000.00 (of which $900.00 is listed as tax deductible) The fee goes to the nonprofit (501C) (3) Wildlife Research Center. The deductible $900.00 is the portion beyond actual expenses and is considered a donation to further their research and education program. The courses are coordinated by Sue Mansfield a recent graduate of Antioch University, New England where she completed her Master’s work. Mansfield has been conducting field work with Dr. Rogers since 2001.

Together Rogers and Mansfield monitor approximately (50+) bears in the study area learning the bears personalities. Many of these bears are monitored through radio-collars.

Courses are conducted at the Northwoods Research Center and surrounding forest west of Ely, Minneosta.

The course as noted; helps participants to realize the extent of the misconceptions held by the public and anyone who has not actually spent time with bears.

 

Rogers is noted as one of the world’s experts on black bear behavior and has shown that black bears can be lived with in peace. However, he cautions others severely that his techniques have taken long periods of time to learn to read animals signs.

 

Rogers further states “It took many years for me to overcome the brain-washing I grew up with about bears. Finally I began to interpret their body language and vocalizations in terms of their fears rather than my fears, and I found that I could build trusting relationships with these intelligent wild animals”

 

Whether intentionally or unintentionally the research of Lynn Rogers is serving the anti-hunters/animal-rights groups by creating the illusion that we can “get-close” to and “co-exist” with wild black bears. The buzz word here is “wild”.

Rogers and Mansfield are working with and studying black bears in an almost “open-zoo” environment.

As noted by Rogers; he built first and second story ledges where he places feed such as seeds, nuts and acorns, supplementary food to the bear’s diet. As the bears found the food, Rogers hung around and persuaded them to eat out of a large can.

 

This is simply an old “hunters” game plan. Prior to hunting season in states that allow bear baiting, the hunting outfitters will place (55) gallon drums in the forest and place rotten meat, bread, donuts and molasses inside. This will attract the bears to the area where they will then become accustomed to the feeding schedules. These “food-conditioned” bears will eventually appear as the guides drive into their areas to deposit more food. In fact, in the off-season the outfitters will place buckets of hard bacon or other meat fats, in these locations so any chance the bears get they can return to the baited areas for supplemental refills.

It is no secret that once a black bear or most wild game for that matter find a food source they eventually will become more comfortable with the surroundings. In places where people feed deer they can rattle a can, place the food next to them and have the deer come out of the nearby woods to practically eat out of their hands.

 

These study bears are conditioned by repetition and fed to accept human interaction and by no way are a reflection of the wild black bears that populate our states and for purposes of this report New Jersey.

 

There are two issues here:

 

First: The majority of humans do not want to create a condition wherein they are sharing backyards and public parks with wild black bears.

Second: In spite of Lynn Rogers’s “homey bears” the black bears that the majority of us must deal with are “wild”, “unpredictable”, “dangerous” and have exhibited a change in behavior from once shy and timid to aggressive.

 

There have been enough unprovoked black bear attacks over the past year alone that supports the “bad-news-bears”.

 

Just this month:

 

Caliente, California; a 56 year old mother was mauled by a bear while walking her dogs. Only through the sacrifice of her dogs did she somehow manage to escape though badly bitten and mauled. A nature lover with years of experience in the Sierras, the woman said she’s had countless encounters with bears, and always believed it wasn’t in their nature to attack. But her latest encounter has changed her mind for good.

 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park; an eight year old boy and his father were mauled by a black bear that pounced on the boy in a creek without provocation. No food was present the bear simply attacked the boy.

 

“This is so rare”, said Lynn Rogers, I don’t know if you would call a bear like that a demented bear, like some people, or a super bear that decides, ‘Hey, I can take a person” quite a remark from the so-called bear expert.

 

 

 

Well if Rogers would further his research to other areas in the U.S. and Canada places where black bears are “wild” and not fed and studied in the “open-zoo” he would find the answer.

Perhaps so best observed by another more practical bear expert; Stephen Herrero who recanted a Rogers like analogy Herrero had published in his 1985 book on black bears stating that “black bears were essentially benevolent”.

 

 Herrero stated under oath while giving a deposition in a black bear mauling lawsuit against Arizona in a 1996 mauling of a 16 year old girl by a relocated nuisance black bear that traveled back some 100 miles to the same location to attack and  permanently disfigure the teenager:

 

“I do think that there is more danger than I realized from food conditioned, habituated, and aggressive bears, the combination of the three. And if I were rewriting that chapter, I would emphasize that there are three ingredients, habituations, the food conditioning, and rewarding aggressive behavior over time that increased the chances of injury…I have learned since the publication of the book that there is more involvement in serious injuries by black bears than I knew of at the time that I wrote the book.”

 

Dr. Rogers has been compared some to Dr. Jane Goodall, who interestingly has been criticized by some for; “using feeding stations to attract Gombe chimpanzees” for research.

 

As for comparisons to Dian Fossey there are none as this very brave and talented woman was studying the vanishing Mountain Gorilla in dangerous, remote areas of Africa where the population, due mainly to poaching, was down to less than 200.

 

Here is the problem with today’s black bears; they are no longer shy and timid. The human population and development of land has created the need to control and maintain a specific number of black bears that can move about in their own natural habitant.

 

In essence, black bears do not need to be observed as in the Lynn Rogers open zoo environment, do not need to be fed to bring them into research areas, there is no need to reach out and touch them they should be left to the privacy of the woods and forests where they are born.

 

Bears are at the top of the food chain and in order to maintain a “healthy black bear population” and this will sound challenging to some, there must be hunting by their only real predator, man. Through, this proven wild game management tool the black bears can be controlled to a number wherein they have enough room to move about in their own natural environment.

 

In states where we have hunting and still have black bear problems this is an indication that the bear population is not consistent with available habitant. States like Pennsylvania recognize this and adjust their hunting seasons accordingly.

 

Just imagine what black bear problems we would have in our country today if not for the black bear hunting seasons of our (26) sister states that understand the need to separate politics and emotions from biologists’ input. Hundreds of thousands of black bears would be around today and with them triple the attacks, injuries, deaths and problems.

 

Lastly, sterilization and other proposed non-lethal remedies have failed and will continue to fail; this is not part of the wild game enviroement. There is no more time for the stall tactics of the anti-hunting/animal-rights groups, inexperienced politicians with personal agendas or the mislead public’s emotions. Non-lethal methods have never and will never work this has been proven in N.J. when black bear problems were down the year after each hunt and substantially increased the years after non-hunting. Wild game is taught to survive, the strong do for the most part to live and breed, others become part of our human food source and other products which is exactly why they were created. No different than domestic animals like cows, goats, chickens, etc a food source.

 

Mike D.