These special dogs have trained to become "bear shepherds," playing a crucial role in preventing dangerous encounters between bears and humans.
Orca (left), Dazzle (center), and Rooster—"bear dogs" with the
Nevada Department of Wildlife—drive away a black bear in Nevada's Lake
Tahoe Basin
Photograph by John T. Humphrey
PUBLISHED February 26, 2019
Bears are becoming Climate Refugees:
When dozens of polar bears descended upon the northern Russian archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, no one was sure what to do. The bears entered homes and public buildings, and people were afraid to go outside. But polar bears are an endangered species in Russia, and the federal government has refused to issue licenses to shoot them.
This “invasion,” as it’s been called, has sparked conversations about how prepared wildlife managers in North America are for an influx of polar bears as they lose critical habitat from melting sea ice and take to land in search of food. Similarly, black bears’ ranges are expanding and oil and gas development is increasingly close to or in bear territory.
One bear biologist, Carrie Hunt, has made it her life’s mission to find effective, non-lethal methods to prevent human-bear conflict. After watching how wildlife rangers’ dogs could scare bears away, she was inspired. In 1996, Hunt founded the Wind River Bear Institute, headquartered in Florence, Montana, to train a special breed of dogs to be “bear shepherds”—to bark an
d scare away bears when they get too close to human settlements and to condition them to steer clear.
Since then, law enforcement and wildlife agencies in the United States and Canada increasingly have begun turning to dogs as an alternative to keep bears away. Bear dogs now work with wildlife and land managers in the states of Washington and Nevada, as well as Alberta, Canada, and even in Japan. Several national parks, including Banff, Yosemite, and Glacier, have contracted bear dogs too.
“Bears are naturally afraid of canids,” Hunt says. “Why? Because packs of coyotes can steal cubs.”
The most common breed of bear dog is the Karelian bear dog, a black-and-white working dog that hails from the region between Finland and Russia called Karelia. Finnish breeders originally intended
the animal to be a big game hunting dog, but Hunt realized they could be trained to manage wildlife, too. The Wind River Bear Institute breeds, trains, and sells Karelian bear dogs as well as contracts them out to agencies that don’t have the resources to have their own program.
“I am confident saying that thousands of bears have been spared the bullet using this nonlethal technique,” said Rich Beausoleil, a wildlife biologist with Washington’s wildlife department, which has eight dogs, in an email.
Bears are becoming Climate Refugees:
When dozens of polar bears descended upon the northern Russian archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, no one was sure what to do. The bears entered homes and public buildings, and people were afraid to go outside. But polar bears are an endangered species in Russia, and the federal government has refused to issue licenses to shoot them.
This “invasion,” as it’s been called, has sparked conversations about how prepared wildlife managers in North America are for an influx of polar bears as they lose critical habitat from melting sea ice and take to land in search of food. Similarly, black bears’ ranges are expanding and oil and gas development is increasingly close to or in bear territory.
One bear biologist, Carrie Hunt, has made it her life’s mission to find effective, non-lethal methods to prevent human-bear conflict. After watching how wildlife rangers’ dogs could scare bears away, she was inspired. In 1996, Hunt founded the Wind River Bear Institute, headquartered in Florence, Montana, to train a special breed of dogs to be “bear shepherds”—to bark an
d scare away bears when they get too close to human settlements and to condition them to steer clear.
Since then, law enforcement and wildlife agencies in the United States and Canada increasingly have begun turning to dogs as an alternative to keep bears away. Bear dogs now work with wildlife and land managers in the states of Washington and Nevada, as well as Alberta, Canada, and even in Japan. Several national parks, including Banff, Yosemite, and Glacier, have contracted bear dogs too.
“Bears are naturally afraid of canids,” Hunt says. “Why? Because packs of coyotes can steal cubs.”
The most common breed of bear dog is the Karelian bear dog, a black-and-white working dog that hails from the region between Finland and Russia called Karelia. Finnish breeders originally intended
the animal to be a big game hunting dog, but Hunt realized they could be trained to manage wildlife, too. The Wind River Bear Institute breeds, trains, and sells Karelian bear dogs as well as contracts them out to agencies that don’t have the resources to have their own program.
“I am confident saying that thousands of bears have been spared the bullet using this nonlethal technique,” said Rich Beausoleil, a wildlife biologist with Washington’s wildlife department, which has eight dogs, in an email.
THE BEAR ‘BOOGIES OUT’
Bear dogs are especially helpful when a bear gets habituated to a
particular spot, such as a garbage dump. The wildlife officer will trap
the bear at the site, and then bring in the dogs.
“They’ll bark at this animal and scare the heck out of it [to] let
them know it’s not where it’s supposed to be and it should never come
back to this location,” Myers says. After the dogs have barked at the
bear for a while, they open up the bear’s cage.
“The bear boogies out. It takes off like a rocket,” Myers says.
Sometimes they fire beanbag rounds or rubber bullets to scare the bear
even more, and then the bear dogs are released.
“They want to go out and get that bear,” says Nils Pedersen, the
wildlife dog program coordinator at Wind River Bear Institute’s
satellite kennel in Fairbanks, Alaska. They track it, bark at it, nip at
its heels, until the dogs are called back by their handlers. By then,
the bear has hopefully learned its lesson that that’s not a place it
wants to return to.
“The good thing about bears is that they’re smart enough to know
[and] to learn quickly. Studies have found there is a very good
non-return rate,” according to Myers.
In the 20 years he’s been working with bear dogs, Beausoleil says he
hasn’t seen any dogs injured because of their work. Hunt emphasizes that
safety is her chief concern when sending dogs after bears, and she says
they’ve had no injuries in the field either.
SOLEDAD THE "HUNTRESS"
Pedersen has formed a very close bond with his principal Karelian bear dog, Soledad.
“Over the years, Soledad and I have grown together in ways that can
only be described as true partnership,” Pedersen says. “I think that our
personalities were complimentary to begin with...but the joy that this
dog brings me cannot be adequately put into words. Soledad is a
huntress.”
Together they’ve released 500-pound black bears in Tahoe and pushed mama grizzlies
with cubs out of campgrounds in the Rocky Mountains. But Soledad is
also trained to do something else—she can sniff out polar bear dens.
(Also read about dogs that can sniff out cancer.)
Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, land managers at oil and gas fields and other work sites are required to establish mile-wide buffer zones around polar bear dens, preventing activity until their hibernation is over.
Dazzle pursues a black bear in Lake Tahoe. Bears learn to fear dogs and people during such incidents, which makes them less likely to become problem animals.
Photograph by John T. Humphrey
(Also read about dogs that can sniff out cancer.)
Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, land managers at oil and gas fields and other work sites are required to establish mile-wide buffer zones around polar bear dens, preventing activity until their hibernation is over.
Dazzle pursues a black bear in Lake Tahoe. Bears learn to fear dogs and people during such incidents, which makes them less likely to become problem animals.
Photograph by John T. Humphrey
It’s an increasingly important role as polar bears move closer to
human activity because of melting sea ice. Soledad can smell polar bears
under feet of snow and alert Pedersen when she’s found a den, thus
allowing the den and its inhabitants to finish their long sleep
undisturbed.
CRIME SOLVERS AT WORK
Bear dogs have also been helpful in solving wildlife crimes.
Beausoleil, who handles dogs Indy and Cash, says while their main duties
relate to bears and cougars, they’ve also been tasked with helping
investigate poaching.
When the wildlife department was tipped off that a gray wolf had been poached—the first in recent memory—it was critical to find the body.
“Officers searched hundreds of hours looking for it, and someone
said, ‘You know what, geez, I wonder if the Karelian bear dog guys could
find this?’” Beausoleil says.
The dogs were able to track down the carcass in 40 minutes. With the
body, law enforcement was able to prove the crime and prosecute the
case.
In another case, officers were tipped off that an elk had been
poached, and they went to the suspect’s house to investigate, finding an
elk head.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
The Louisiana black bear is one of 16 subspecies of black bear.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
But they needed more evidence to bring the suspect to court. The
investigators went out to search for the rest of the elk’s body, but
they came up empty-handed. But within 20 minutes of bringing in the bear
dog team, one of the dogs found elk remains. DNA from the head matched DNA from the remains.
(Read about sniffer dogs that find cremated human remains in the rubble after wildfires.)
(Read about sniffer dogs that find cremated human remains in the rubble after wildfires.)
“They were able to prosecute once again based on being able to find
the carcass, which we never would’ve found without the bear dog,”
Beausoleil says.
CHALLENGES
Despite the enthusiasm for the program among some state wildlife
managers, Karelian bear dogs aren’t the best choice for everyone or
every setting.
Ann Bryant, executive director of The BEAR League, a volunteer bear
conservation group in Tahoe, ran into obstacles trying to use them in
populated areas. Fourteen years ago, the organization got two Karelian
bear dogs, Anya and Dmytry, from a breeder and trained them up.
“Anya and Dmytry were a huge hit at our public lectures and
outreaches and were able to help us talk some bears out from under
homes,” Bryant said in an email, but “it quickly became evident that
allowing them to chase bears through neighborhoods and across busy
roadways and through shopping center parking lots was not a good idea.”
Furthermore, training bear dogs is a lot of work, and not everyone’s up to the challenge.
“It’s a huge, full-time job because that dog is there with you all
the time,” Bryant says. “It can work, it’s not a panacea….You really got
to research it, be dedicated at it. These dogs have to become your
life.”
(See the rigors of war dog training.)
(See the rigors of war dog training.)
Derek Reich, a volunteer who assists the Nevada Department of
Wildlife with its bear dog team, says that the time and resources
required to train bear dogs has limited the growth of their program.
“It's also easier for a lot of agencies to just kill the bear,” Reich
said in an email. “In most states, black bears are a game species. It's
a lot of effort and resources put into an animal who may just be
harvested in a hunt the next week.”
After more than twenty years at the helm of the institute, Hunt says
she’ll be stepping back soon from the program, and Pedersen will be
taking over as executive director.
“I’m going to just work on breeding and raising the dogs and matching
them and placing them in agencies (where) I know them,” she said. “I’m
going to try to expand the use of these dogs into new areas that have
bear problems like the east coast of the United States.”
Hunt says she’s proud of
her legacy. “I had this dream, and it became a reality because I never
gave up,” she says. “It was in my DNA to want to communicate with dogs
and bears and work to help them.”
Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/karelian-bear-dogs-keep-bears-away/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=twitter::cmp=editorial::add=tw20190226animals-beardogs::rid=&sf208491504=1
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