Bear habitat destroyed in Alberta by fires

The only material from Alberta, Canada that I could find on You Tube relating to bears was killing them.

Hungry black bears descend on Fort McMurray

CTV,

20 May, 2016

With their habitat destroyed by northern Alberta’s raging wildfire, hungry black bears are now moving into the evacuated city of Fort McMurray to scavenge for food.

“What we’ve got is tons of spoiling food inside houses in the heart of prime black bear range,” University of Alberta conservation biologist Lee Foote told CTV News on Friday. “You couldn’t create a better potential to attract black bears from a large area... and there are a lot of black bears in the area.”

Although the number of bears that have entered the city remains unknown, YouTube footage has surfaced of the animals scavenging through burning debris. Residents are expected to begin returning to the city on June 1.

“It hasn’t played out to be a big problem yet because we don’t have a lot of people in Fort McMurray,” Foote says. “But when they return and have their hands full with cleanup and fixing up, they need to keep watching over their shoulder.”

Black bears, Foote says, are typically non-aggressive, with attacks on humans being extremely rare. But that doesn’t mean that Fort Mac residents should be blasé about their furry new neighbours. If encountering a bear, Foote says that you should make sure not to corner the animal, get between it and food or startle a mother with cubs. Rotten food, he adds, should only be disposed of in properly-sealed metal bins. Local authorities should always be called in for help.

“The Fort McMurray folks are really quite bear aware,” Foote says. “But this is going to be a different type of emboldened, entitled bear -- if you will. They have had free reign of the place for a while, it’s prime fattening-up season just out of hibernation, and it could be a problem.”

Siberian bears affected by warm weather

Mild weather is making bears awake early from hibernation

Residents warned to stay away from the animals, with two men already having been savagely attacked... but there is happy news for two little cubs.

Officials in the Sakhalin Region say that bears are waking up early because of recent rains and the warmer winter. Picture: Sergey Gorshkov

the Siberian Times,

02 April 2015

Unusually warm weather is prompting bears to awake from hibernation early with warnings that they could attack people as they forage for food. A number of sightings of the animals has been made in parts of Siberia and the Far East in recent days, much earlier than normal.

In the southern Siberian region of Tuva - where about 3,500 bears live - two men were savagely attacked, suffering serious head and arm injuries, with one of them losing an eye.

And at the weekend the tracks of a mother bear and two cubs were found in the Gorny Vozdukh ski resort near to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in the Far East. Game wardens are now talking about the possibility of having to kill the animals if they do not move away from the slopes.

Officials in the Sakhalin Region say that bears are waking up early because of recent rains and the warmer winter.

On March 11, hunters from the Teguldetsky district, in the Tomsk region, shot the first bear of the year after it approached a dump near the dining room of a timber plant.

Sergei Bazykin, a local expert, said: 'Most likely, he was just hungry when climbed into his den in the autumn or maybe someone scared it and he awakened. When that happened, of course he needed food.'

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Bears in spring on Kamchatka pictured by brilliant wildlige photographers Igor Shpilenok(top) and Sergey Gorshkov(bottom). 

Two weeks later military personnel responsible for the protection of the closed city of Seversk, 15km north of Tomsk, noticed a bear and called in hunters. 

Also in the Tomsk region, residents in the Kargasok district are being asked to be careful and not let their children walk into the forest. Anyone who sees a bear on the boundary of their village is also being urged to notify hunters immediately.

Spring bear hunting started in Tomsk on Saturday with the limit set on 311 bears.

Immediately following their hibernation period bears are more dangerous than normal because they are foraging for food. They tend not to wake up until the first half of April but the mild winter has brought this forward.

Meanwhile, two bear cubs found alone in the forest in Yekaterinburg without any sign of their mother have been rescued by a hunter and taken to a circus.

The man, believing that the bear’s parents had been killed, even spent a few days feeding them with milk before he decided what to do with them.

It was only after he found out that Aleksandr Ivanov, a famous bear handler, was on tour in the city’s circus that he handed the cubs over to be looked after.

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'They are like little children. Most of the time they eat, sleep and play.' Pictures: Natalia Kazantseva/Komsomolskaya Pravda

Mr Ivanov said: 'They are two sisters and about two months old. Mostly probably, their parents died because bears never leave their offspring.

'Foresters and hunters already know that if something bad happens, they should call me. If the bear cubs were not brought to Yekaterinburg, they would have died of hunger or would have been killed by predators.'

Each of the cubs is 6kg and they are doing well and getting bigger and stronger every day.

They have been checked by vet and they have no health issues, and they are eating milk porridge with vitamins. In time, they will also get to eat fruit, fish and honey. 

Natalia Kazantseva, the circus press officer, said: 'They are like little children. Most of the time they eat, sleep and play. They play together with the children of the circus artists.'

Most probably, the bears will take up a circus career. In the meantime the circus has launched a campaign to find the best names for the cubs.

California's bears

Fears Loom As Bears Ditch Hibernation During Drought

Bears are finding it so unseasonably warm in the Sierra Nevada mountain range this winter that many of them are forgoing hibernation in favor of foraging through garbage, bringing them closer to humans and spelling out trouble for the food chain

Huffington Post,

22 January, 2014

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Bears in the Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and beyond usually spend December through March napping in caves, but residents and visitors have noticed an increase in bear activity typical of summer months. With temperatures 10 degrees above normal accompanying the California drought, bears have found little reason to hibernate -- especially when there is plentiful food in the Lake Tahoe region.

"In this weather, you're going to see more of them," Chris Healy of the Nevada Department of Wildlife told the San Francisco Chronicle. "They're totally content to hibernate, but if the food's available, they'll get up and eat."

The troubling phenomenon has been apparent to residents of the Sierras, where last week's snowpack measured just 17 percent of normal.

"The local bears are coming out of hibernation three months early!" Tom Loe of Sierra Drifters Guide Service wrote. "I have been forced for the first time in nearly 20 years here to water my deciduous trees in a T-shirt -- they are budding!"

Earlier this month, a bear was caught on film scurrying across the slopes during a ski race at Heavenly Mountain Resort. The appearance ended without any incident, but concerns go beyond possible scuffles with humans. Wildlife experts warn the bears’ winter presence will only further exacerbate food and water shortages linked to the drought and California’s driest year in recorded history come spring.

"A drought basically dries up the natural food availability and dries up the water sources, and you get them not only wandering farther, but often coming to urban areas to fulfill their daily needs," Jason Holley, a wildlife biologist supervisor for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said of bears facing shortages of berries or insects to feed on. "We've seen upticks in drought years. We could be looking at that in the spring.”