After Bear Incident, Weighing Relocation against Removal

Last Saturday morning, October 22, residents woke up to an alert from the Chelan County Sheriff’s Facebook page; a large yellow graphic rendering of a “caution” sign, with an outline of a bear etched in black in the middle, followed by the inscription “bear in area.” Multiple residents shared the warning on Leavenworth’s Facebook page, including Communications Analyst Christie Voos, while others surely received screenshots from friends and neighbors who had woken first.

Earlier the same morning, at around seven, a local woman let her dog out near her home, adjacent to Enchantment Park and Blackbird. She was charged by an adult female black bear and sustained severe but non-life-threatening injuries, according to Washington Department Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). An hour later, at around eight, the Sheriff’s department posted the warning to residents to avoid the Enchantment Park Way area; and at around noon, WDFW announced that an adult sow black bear had been lethally removed and two nine-month-old cubs were captured and brought to a rehabilitation facility.

On Facebook, residents expressed deep sympathy, care, and sadness for both the injured woman and the fate of the mother bear who charged her, who likely did so to defend her cubs. Commenters also expressed a mixture of confusion and frustration around why events unfolded as they did: why do we still have an issue with garbage and other bear attractants, and why did the mother have to be lethally removed instead of relocated?

To the first question, nearly every reputable wildlife resource offers a similar and clear conclusion: only human awareness and action to reduce bear attractants, such as securing or removing loose garbage and pet or bird foods, will reliably reduce undesirable human-bear interactions. For local residents this means removing bird feeders during bear seasons, putting the garbage out at the last possible moment (the morning of, rather than the night before), and using bear-resistant garbage bins, which can be acquired with a fee from Waste Management.

The City’s Public Works Director Tom Wachholder is proactively attending bear awareness workshops with other communities experiencing similar bear issues. Of the four communities evaluated for success so far, Wachholder recalls, “nearly all have requirements for bear resistant garbage cans for both commercial and residential.” Requirement and possible subsidized supply of bear resistant cans would be a joint government and resident effort, but research suggests it would likely be impactful to reducing bear incidents.

As for the choice of lethal removal over relocation, it is a question of weighing the costs and probability of risk against the costs and probability of successful alternatives. With bears, both research and WDFW experience show that relocation is rarely successful. A nearly two decades long study from Ontario, Canada in 1998 found that relocated adult bears usually found their way back to their original homes after being relocated up to 250 miles away. Recently WDFW attempted to relocate a bear from the Lake Wenatchee area to 50 miles north of Lake Chelan, and within a week, it had crossed the lake and two major mountain ranges to return to the original human food source. Younger bears, usually under two years of age, are far less likely to return home, but face other survival challenges.

Relocation is so unlikely to be successful that many state wildlife departments have made it a policy to no longer even attempt it, including Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife which states on their website “ODFW does not translocate bears that have been habituated to humans because these animals are much more likely to have dangerous interactions with humans in the future.” WDFW evaluates the situation on a case-by-case basis, but this August published a blog post explaining how relocation has not always been successful and is therefore not always the best option.

The choice to lethally remove a life when weighed against the cost and likelihood of successful alternatives is always sobering but is neither unfamiliar territory nor an unacceptable societal norm, especially when human life or property is in danger. Official numbers of lethally removed bears by WDFW are twelve and ten for 2020 and 2021, respectively. WDFW has also recently begun lethally removing wolves who regularly endanger livestock; about one to three per year in the last few years. For comparison of magnitudes, during 2020 about 1,500 dogs were euthanized in Washington animal shelters, according to Best Friends Animal Society, and 32 people were fatally shot in Washington police shootings, according to the Washington Post. Sometimes, with the alternatives that exist and the information we have at the time, removals can be society’s most reasonable course of action.

However, to the extent we value protecting and living as harmoniously as possible with sentient life, we should strive to avoid conflict in the first place and attain as much information as we can on how to avoid the conflict or what alternatives exist if conflict occurs. In order to minimize encounters with Sophie’s choice, systematic changes can be made, such as greater use or requirement of bear resistant cans. And we can be open to new research, data, or ideas that promise more effective alternatives. Question what is in place, while remaining understanding if we are making the best choice available with the information at the time.

Along with urging residents to be more vigilant with bear attractants, WDFW still hopes residents feel encouraged to call in bear sightings. One of the first steps officers often take is increasing education and awareness in the surrounding area by speaking with neighbors about reducing attractants. Everyone shares the goal of keeping the area safe, and often that begins with prevention.