According to the Hamburg papers a European brown bear has been photographed in Bavaria, Germany. The bear, which is the first seen in Germany in 171 years, is believed to have come from Austria. It sounds like it has already begun to eat sheep and is going to be moved into a nature reserve.

VBR,

Ted Gorsline

Yes, and apparently it has been put on the list of animals that can be shot - with the caveat, that it would be preferable to catch it alive. The problem seems to be, that this bear has lost all fear of human beings, and is therefore considered a safety liability beyond what bears naturally represent.

So I guess a lot of Bavarian hunters are looking at their gun cabinets right now, wondering whther that 6.5x57 or 7x64 they usually take hunting would do the job, should the bear show up under their high seat...

- mike

He ate 7 sheep and a bee hive so now he's on the austrian and german hit list . .Apparently he is a young male bear released into the wild in Italy. But he's disappeared ! I guess he doesn't like the german/austrian she bears or beer !!

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
He ate 7 sheep and a bee hive so now he's on the austrian and german hit list . .Apparently he is a young male bear released into the wild in Italy. But he's disappeared ! I guess he doesn't like the german/austrian she bears or beer !!

Italy still has a wild population of bears.
Apparently the Italians are complaining about the German decision - but maybe they should have educated their bear a bit better.
There are no "she bears" in Germany, and the bear never showed up in a pub asking for beer.

Fuhrmann

I have heard that it is fairly easy to educate Alaskan brown bears to avoid humans by shooting them in the butt with number 6 shot.

I'll bet that if you ran him to bay a few times with dogs and whacked him in the butt every time with some birdshot that you could educate him into being a bear that would avoid people if not sheep.



VBR,


Ted Gorsline

...Ted those steps could be posible in Alaska but here in EU with rather dense populated areas it can become tricky - we had a small bear - saw that was shot in self deffence situation here in Slovenia - later we found she had been shot in her hind thigh not long ago...she had also an old injury from the past (she had only 3 toes on her other hind leg)...here are some pics - it also arises a question of ethnics to put an animal through that much suffering that eventually was coused by that shot IMO it is better to put it down clean and fast - and in the first place IMO bears belong and should stay in the place where they are Bears not an political object...

dear mouse 93

You have to match the size of the pellets to the size of the bear so you don't penetrate the skin. Rubber pellets would do. The idea is to give them a shocking spank whenever they meet humans just like their mother would have done when they got out of line as cubs. It is a mistake to wound them.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

I know - that was just a display how things can go south

If bears had passport, it should be italian 100%.
In fact Jay Jay 01 born in Italy some year ago (3 or 4), now it is loafing looking for his territory.

The number of bears in Italy is very small, and damages made by them are paid without problem, by my opinion the reaction is a little histerical.

The nuisance bear problem in Ontario is said to have gotten much worse since the closure of the spring bear season. Although even when the spring season was on it was common to have as many as 1,200 nuisance bear incidents in one year in the Sudbury District alone.

People don't like having nuisance bears break into their homes and wreck their bee hives or kill their cattle so they tend to shoot them and not say anything even if its illegal. The media calls it the three S's - Shoot, shovel and shutup.

In fact, what really happens in Ontario is the bears are deliberately gut shot because that way they run along way from where they are shot and die far from the scene of the crime in some hidden place of their choosing.

If a game warden comes to the sound of a shot he finds nothing except somebody target shooting. Bears have long hair and lots of fat to absorb blood and a gut shot bear leaves little or no blood. There is no evidence. The bear is long gone.

Gut shooting saves the enormous amount of work associated with burying a bear and the possibility of being caught while doing it.

The only way to manage bears where they are common is to hunt them. Hunters teach bears to fear people, they try to kill them as quickly as possible, they generate money doing it instead of costing money to hire animal control people, and the animals are not wasted.



VBR,



Ted Gorsline

Ted,
I think that the problem is badly exposed and this can help to equivocate what is happening.

1 (one), ONLY 1 on the maybe 10 bears population is loafing arriving in Germany from Italy, it had caused some damage.

In that area we do not have an invasion of bears, we do not have big risks to meet bears everyday.

We are not in Romania where there are, or were, 5000 bears known and counted and there were some deadly accident every year.

Nothing to say about trapping it or fightening it, but I think that it is an exaggerated reaction to kill it immediately.

Better to introduce a female bear to the area than to kill it.

VBR,

Ted Gorsline

I agreee with you

...agree with you guys - sure worth to try - tho those things mostly rise some bitter disagreements and finally end with bear been shot...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060513/sc_afp/francewildlifebears_060513202957
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36255/story.htm

All that fuss about a few bears !!Here in PA they try to limit bear populations to 10,000. Las t year there were 14,000 so they let hunters take 4,000 !! We see them here all the time ,I even had one knock on my door ! ...Maybe that 's why there are no sheep !!!

mete - perhaps you should get some lions to get you out of bear monotony

We're working on that !! For years NY and PA denied the existance of mountain lions despite many sightings . The've changed their story since a year ago someone photographed a mountain lion on their porch !!!!

If anyone wants some, we have quite a few to spare in California . . . not to mention 16,000 bears and increasing!

Old Sarge methinks you misstated the CA bear population it's more like 30K and growing.Last year the 1700 population hunt stop wasn't reached.

There are about 750,000 black bears in North America now and the population is still growing.

VBR,


Ted Gorsline

German officials say "For security reasons ,permission to open fire must be maintained " He must be a terrorist !! Environmentalists are trying to capture him first. Poor JJ1 ,those Austrians and Germans just can't understand an Italian !

US black bears are not equivalent to European browns. The European Brown is a close relative of the US Brown / Grizzly.

Having a adolescent Brown running around Bavaria is like having a Grizzly running around the Bay area. Very exciting!

As an aside, I am always amazed at the intense feelings bears provoke in most western Europeans. A very visceral fear and fascination. Probably because of the Grimm influence, I would surmise. FWIW, Dutch.