Last week, wildlife officials were forced to euthanize yet another “problem bear” at Lake Tahoe, marking the third offspring killed from the same litter born to an infamous 19-year-old mother bear, according to Herald Extra.
BAD BEHAVIOR IN BEARS
The recent incident has highlighted an ongoing debate among scientists regarding the role of “nature” versus “nurture.” Researchers have specifically focused on this issue in regard to black bears from Yosemite National Park, central Florida and the Adirondacks.
The 19-year-old female bear in question is known by her tag number, Green 108.
“She’s just kind of a chronic, nuisance-type bear,” said Carl Lackey, a wildlife biologist for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. “She’s always been getting into trash, always been in the same area. We’ve captured several litters of hers. We’ve captured her several times.”
NATURE VERSUS NURTURE
Back in 1989, a study conducted by National Park Service researchers suggested that problems found in bears could be the result of a mother passing down her behavior to her offspring. A 2008 study by Rachel Mazur and Victoria Seher, researchers at Yosemite’s Division of Resources Management, gave credence to this assertion, after it was discovered that bears seemed to pass down the skill of “food-conditioned foraging” (rummaging for food in human environments) to their young.
In studying the role of genetics in bear conflict behavior, Lackey co-authored a study that was published in the Journal of Mammalogy in 2008. From the data, researchers were able to conclude that genetics alone could not explain a “nuisance behavior” in black bears.
In fact, the bad behavior could – in part – be due to humans. As bears come into increasingly close contact with us, they become habituated to food, states Chris Healy, a Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman. Although rummaging through trash cans is not a cause for euthanization, this behavior can quickly escalate. Green 108, as an example, has been trapped five times since 2004.
Healy offers a simple solution to the problem: “You have to change the way you deal with garbage.” National Parks, for instance, have begun to utilize bear-proof trash containers and some U.S. towns have made them mandatory.
“If we could have waved a magic wand and bear-proofed Tahoe years ago, you wouldn’t see the number of bears getting into these conflict situations,” he said.
