OPINION: People cause problem bears? It ain't necessarily so

Back in January, Brian Peck wrote a letter denouncing the use of hunting as a control method of dealing with grizzly bears. His reasoning sounds almost reasonable until you begin to dissect his arguments.

First: Brian tells us that grizzlies are the slowest reproducing animals in North America. I guess the black bear doesn’t count, and as with the grizzlies, black bears are starting to get into trouble, by moving into residential areas. Some of the biologists will tell us that the bears are merely looking for food due to drought conditions. That is only partially true. Another factor is that they are overcrowding their traditional areas and are being driven out by larger, more aggressive bears.

According the Charles Jonkel, a grizzly expert, this might have been the cause that sent the famous Giefer Creek Grizzly on his destructive course back in the early 1970s. People living in and around the area ended up carrying guns and were afraid to roam their own property at night for fear of coming face to face with this pesky bruin.

Second: Brian assets that “virtually all ‘problem bears’ are caused by ‘problem people’ and their bad behavior.” I guess Brian is not much on historical research. A brief scanning of Lewis and Clark’s Journals reveals that grizzly bears wreaked all kinds of havoc on the Native Americans and the Corps of Discovery. The bears acted with impunity; attacking where and whom they wished.

According to “Lewis and Clark: Historic Places Associated with their Transcontinental Exploration (1804-06)” published by the National Park Service: The explorers reported that the Native Americans would resort to the same rituals when hunting grizzlies as they did going into battle with neighboring tribes.

The grizzlies became such a problem that Lewis and Clark found it imprudent to send a man alone into the brush, and nightly, the men slept with their weapons at their sides.

This behavior by the bears was not caused by left-over hamburgers on the deck nor flimsy chicken coops. It was the bears’ nature.

Third: Brian assets that there is no credible evidence that hunting grizzlies causes the bears to fear and avoid humans. Once again, looking into history we can see that hunting and only hunting caused the bears to retreat into uninhabited areas. Man and grizzly cannot live peacefully side by side. Grizzlies will hunt and eat whatever they can find. If not wild game, they will kill and eat livestock, pets, Smucker’s jams and jellies, even humans.

Finally: Brian explains that there are only an estimated 717 grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone system, and if we insist on killing them there will be such a firestorm of public disapproval that we will lose public support for out tourist industry.

This is my home, Brian. It is not a zoo. The fact that some tourists elect to stay away in protest doesn’t interest me in the least. We have grizzlies roaming on the outskirts of Kalispell and my grandchildren should not have to fear playing in their backyards.

If you are so scared of out-of-state public opinion concerning the grizzlies, let’s send 12 breeding age pairs to all of the states where the grizzlies traditionally lived: California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Oregon and Washington. That will relieve the overpopulation problem here and give them new areas to reclaim.

Funk is a resident of Kalispell.