“Lasting success requires both HUMANS and BEARS to change their behaviors otherwise bears will continually get into trouble.” –Southwest Alberta Bear Management Program

I began this series because of a discussion the British Columbia Food Security Network was having about how to make bears and fruit trees get along. Members in Powell River, BC were being told by their local Ministry of Environment Conservation Officers to cut down their fruit trees and then being threatened with fines if they did not comply.

As a farmer, a food provisioner, and someone who is passionate about food security and community development, I was concerned by this attitude of the regional Conservation Officers.  Because it is not policy (yet) on the Ministry of Environment’s site, it makes me wonder why these Conservation Officers are suggesting this as a reasonable solution to the human-bear conflict.  I believe it is because they are convinced by some of the myths I have outlined in previous articles (see part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 of the series), in particular, the theory that humans can control bear behavior if we remove all the attractants, which is simply not true.

Furthermore, it is a ridiculous fantasy that we can live ‘in harmony’ with wildlife. As one Bear Smart BC program coordinator told me during an interview, “Living with large predators has its limitations and we can’t expect people to ignore the risks associated with bear/human conflict.” Sadly, the only outcome of these ‘animal-centric’ ideas is for humans to be held hostage to the bears which, thanks to changes in legislation in Canada, now have the backing of the Conservation Officers and, thanks to the preservationist media agenda, now have the backing of the public at large.

The New Jersey example proves that the act of withdrawing is futile (see New Jersey Bear Problem); despite the mammoth efforts to control city garbage, the state’s bear problem is worse than ever!

As the New Jersey example shows, once you have habituated bears and then remove the attractants (food, garbage, barbeques, fruit trees) outside your home, bears will enter houses, because they are accustomed to acquiring food at those locations and are no longer afraid of humans.  Instead, they see human settlements as a source of food.  “We don’t know exactly how long it takes for a habituated bear to become ‘human food conditioned’ but in some observations of specific bears we have estimated it took approximately 10 days,” the Bear Smart BC program coordinator told me.

What is worse, they may even consider your property part of their home range territory and defend it aggressively. While not strictly territorial by nature, bears do conduct a modified form of territorial defense (what some bear behavior experts call ‘home range’ defense), where a bear will defend access to resources such as the best salmon spawning rivers, the best berry patches, or other areas with rich sources of food (resources) and they will defend those areas aggressively.

This home range defense is an important distinction in bear behavior that has implications for our food security. When you develop a food secure piece of ground in bear territory, you could find yourself (or your yard/farm) being considered part of a bear’s ‘home-range’ territory. If your yard is in prime bear habitat then it is not likely that you will end up with a young, inexperienced (or marginalized) bear, but you could end up with an older, more experienced (and thus more aggressive) bear laying claim to your fruit trees. It is even likely to be a dominant female with cubs. She may not be able to hold prime river access, but because your farm/yard/trees are close to the river, she can lay claim to that habitat. In other words, you could end up with a bear that is willing to fight aggressively to keep (or take) the access to the fruit trees.  Females with cubs are an even more dangerous situation because of the ‘cub-defense’ behavior–the most common type of bear aggression towards people that results in injury.

Younger or more inexperienced bears can sometimes be deterred more easily (with bear bangers, or dogs, loud noises, electric fences, and so on) but more experienced and/or determined bears (especially females with cubs) will not be so easily deterred–especially if they have had access to this food source over time.

For the most part, it is the younger bears which are being forced to access people’s yards (around cities and less wild spaces) but it is certainly not always the case. The typical bear to get into trouble with people is a sub-adult between 2 to 5 years old for Black Bears, and 3 to 5 years old for Grizzlies. Black bear cubs stay with the sow for two years and Grizzly cubs stay three years. After that they are forced to fend for themselves and at that point they become very vulnerable. Sub-adults are vulnerable to predation by other bears, cougars, and wolves, so they are forced further away from their original home range territory. Sub-adult males are bolder than females and they are usually the first source of the conflict. The next ones to get up close to homes are sows with cubs. These sows approach human development for the same reasons that sub-adults do, to stay away from predators, especially dominant male bears.

Because of this, they choose “safe zones” where the dominant males (as well as other predators) are less likely to be present. Drawn in by their strong sense of smell to the odors around homes, these bears explore for opportunities. Because we are no longer trapping, snaring, and shooting these intruders, these bears quickly learn that human settlements are a safe haven so they push the envelope.  It is here that the trouble begins and finding a solution becomes paramount.

We can categorize bears, regardless of species, in three ways.

1.  Wild–No previous experience with humans.

2.  Human Wise–They know what humans are; they have seen them, smelled, and heard them.

3.  Habituated–These bears are accustomed to being around people and have learned not to fear them. These are by far the most dangerous kind of bear to deal with.

Wild bears and human wise bears are not problem bears, only potentially problem bears. Problem bears are habituated bears. In order to address those bears effectively, humans have to accept that we are part of the problem and change our behaviors accordingly.

If we want to keep these animals alive then a mammoth effort in lifestyle change is required. Step one is to acknowledge that we are in competition with them for resources (food, land, access to food sources, waterways, etc–even if we are vegan) and step two is to act accordingly. Here are the four main ways we may minimize the human-bear conflict:

1. We can stop habituating bears to our food sources by not putting any food into garbage cans in our neighborhoods or into community garbage dumps.  

Professor Stephen Herrero found villagers in Italy surrounded by mountains and bears, who, despite growing much of their own food, keeping fruit trees, and composting in they own yards, do not have bear problems. H
e documents his experience in the village in his book,  Bear Attacks Revised: their cause and avoidance. The people in these Italian mountain communities put NO food garbage into their dumps! Not a drop. In addition, the households compost all their own food and thus the bears do not become accustomed to human waste food in the towns or at the dumps. They also defend their settlements so the bears know not to come to town and that humans are a threat.

2. We can keep bears wild by delineating preservation areas for bears where humans are not allowed to go.

As a May 2010 Sierra Club Canada Media Release so rightly states, we must “… protect adequate amounts of grizzly bear habitat and restrict the number of open routes and motorized access in other places.”

3. We can make bears more human wise by defending our territory aggressively.

Enter The Wind River Bear Institute and its ‘Parters-in-Life’ program.

An innovative leader in this work, the Wind River Bear Institute uses non-lethal methods of reducing the human-bear conflict problems. The institute’s goal is to teach the bears and humans how to avoid conflict.  Its mission is ‘to reduce human-caused bear mortality and conflicts worldwide to ensure the continued survival of all species of bears for future generations’. When a ‘nuisance’ bear shows up, a dog trainer and team are dispatched to aggressively defend the property and/or human settlement a bear is encroaching upon.

This technique is called ‘bear shepherding’: the idea behind it is to teach bears to recognize that humans have territorial boundaries and they are not welcome inside them. Of her program, Hunt says, “We have developed a system for teaching safe, meaningful lessons to bears and use a variety of loud noises, rubber projectiles and Karelian Bear Dog (KBD) Wildlife Service Dogs (WSDs) to safely ‘herd’ bears out of off-limit areas such as roadways, campgrounds, developed sites, and back country camps.”

It is the aim of The Wind River Bear Institute (WRBI) to successfully ‘retrain’ the bears to recognize humans and see them as a threat to be avoided. “Because our lessons are based on wild bear behavior, the bears are taught to view us as much like a dominant bear and learn to avoid human developed sites as ‘our’ territory.”  Because the technique is based in wild animal behavior, it can be used as a template for other animals that pose human-wildlife conflict. The WRBI has also used this shepherding technique with cougars, moose, big horn sheep, and wolves.

Enter the government.

Our government officials could put more money into supporting programs like the Partners-in-Life, and have Conservation Officers trained to do Bear Shepherding. We could also give back land owners some power through policy changes, and allow them to defend their territory as a preventative measure. This could entail trapping, snaring, and shooting if necessary. Property owners should not have to wait until a bear is habituated to their land before something can be done. They should not have to wait until the bear has broken into their chicken shed and killed every chicken before a Conservation Officer is dispatched to ‘deal’ with the problem bear.  After all, once the chickens are all dead the bear is no longer a problem!

Destroying the bears is not the only way to deal with them, but sadly, sometimes it is the only solution. Habituated bears are very difficult to discourage. A Bear Smart BC program coordinator admitted, “some bears get too possessive and aggressive around people’s homes and there is no other solution but to destroy them… As a program our first responsibility is to human safety.” He is speaking from experience, not from emotion.

Why not simply relocate problem bears? An article in the Journal of Wildlife Management by Blanchard and Knight (1995) states, “Because of low survival and high return rates [of relocated bears], transporting grizzly bears should be considered a final action to eliminate a conflict situation.” Many relocated bears die either by fighting with other bears in their newly relocated to territory, or by fighting with bears whose territory they have to cross in order to get back to their own home range territory. Because of the low survival rate (and the high resource use and transportation costs), bear biologist Carrie Hunt implores, “relocation and destruction must fade into history as something we do as an exception rather than the norm.”

4. We can control our population growth.

We must control our population and limit our growth, period. Otherwise, there will be no space left for bears or any other wild creatures to thrive.

What you ‘can’ do:

Removing food sources from bears has its merits and does make a positive difference in reducing conflict. The Bear Smart BC program has been working with bear-resistant garbage can makers who have developed some successful and innovative solutions.  In order for any container to received bear-resistant status it must undergo stringent testing through the Living with Wildlife with Wildlife Foundation in Wyoming.  Standards are posted online.  One particular maker, Tye Dee Bins, makes metal bins that, during test trials, no bear could get into no matter how hard it tried.

Electric fencing has come a long way over recent years and installation is the key to dissuading bears from trying to reach a garden, fruit trees, or even barns. Bear Smart has obtained effective electric fencing from Gallagher Fencing, a New Zealand Company which came to BC and trained the Bear Smart Program Delivery Specialists on the proper installation of electric fencing. It is paramount that the bears do not defeat the fence when they attempt to access food. In the Kootenays, BC, Grizzlies had been attacking chicken coops and pig pens, so Bear Smart BC staff responded to complaints and erected a Gallagher electric fence. After one successful electric shot, they find that the bears get the message and never return. The down side to the electric fencing is its high cost.

It’s a question of food security

While it may sound as if I would have all bears and wildlife destroyed, it is not the case. My position with respect to the human-wildlife conflict is rooted in terms of food security and community/rural survival: we cannot have food security when there are oppositional philosophies being enforced by different Ministries.

What I hope to do over the course of several articles is to examine these key themes and shed light on these common false beliefs. The other articles of this series are:

1. On food safety and bears, part one

2. On food safety and bears, part two

3. On food safety and bears, part three

As ever, I welcome your feedback and comments as they can add to the discussion and help me develop my position.

False belief #4: After all, you are in ‘their territory’

Some readers’ responses to one of my articles about the human-wildlife conflict provide a departure point for discussion of this false belief: “Any thoughts about the fact that you are placing tasty food morsels in the bear’s territory? Why are you keeping fruit trees in bear territory?” … “If you have animals and fruit trees then you are just asking for predators to come”… “Well, you are in their territory so you just have to accept this” (my personal favorite).

The very concept of ‘territory’ is the essential problem.  It is a neat fiction which presumes a boundary between the bears’ ‘territory’ and ‘ours’, and a contractual agreement as to where that boundary-line is. If so, where is it? At the edge of cities? around all rural areas? or should we all move out of the countryside and back into cities… again, where is the edge of the city? At this field, or that fence-line? As with so many issues, this debate is over boundaries, borders, and margins, and yet there is no demarcated boundary to any natural creature’s territory–only constantly changing niches or ill-defined ranges, constantly fought for with tooth and claw.

The idea of identifiable borders is a human invention (viz. Hadrian’s, China’s, Berlin’s, Peach Arch Park and the 49th parallel) and we have difficulty maintaining even those (look at Gaza, or the Mexico/US border, or China and Tibet, or the Northwest Territory now Nunavut, to name a fraction of the infractions). Animals like bears do understand territory and mark theirs distinctively, but that territory is a living, changing thing, depending on each bear’s niche, condition, and the state of the food supply. That food supply is intimately linked to the general bear population; if the food supply or population changes, the bear’s fight for territory becomes more competitive; the delineation and extent of that territory shift and morph under these pressures.

With respect to our current bear problem, a poor summer with few fish or berries coupled with an increase in bear population means their food source is too scarce in their own food shed, so the fight for territory between bears has become more vicious. Consequently, the weaker and younger bears that are denied access to prime habitat are pushed out of what we think of as ‘their territory’ and into ‘ours.’  Easy pickings are chicken houses, fruit trees, gardens and garbage; combined with a policy of ‘non-attractants’ it’s not long before bears consider ‘our territory’ theirs. When we add the fact that people are no longer ‘fighting’ back as we once did against these carnivores, their assumption is understandable. Unlike the bears along the river fishing for salmon, who drive us and each other away in order to protect their food source, we humans didn’t even put up a fight when they came and ate all our chickens, turkeys, and ducks; nor did we complain when they harvested all our carrots, parsley, plums, and pears.

So how do I establish and maintain my border?

A border, however loosely defined, only has existence if both sides acknowledge and maintain it. In contrast to predators’ shifting borders, humans have always grown gardens, had fruit trees, and raised domesticated animals in this valley.  While the bears’ boundary is shifting, our human boundary has always been clearly delineated (mown lawns, driveways, and often a fence, etc.), and we have throughout history educated the animals by trapping and shooting. Everywhere in the world, people have marked their ‘territory’ by shooting and trapping offenders in this way, and thus they have trained predators not to intrude across the humans’ clearly delineated, and relatively unshifting borders. Like dogs, bears and cougars can be trained, and that is why we have a residual idea that those animals have a natural fear of humans. But there is nothing innate about it; it is a learned behavior and a direct result of an ancient human-wildlife conflict in which we have always been engaged.

I have come to understand that the remaining predators need constantly to be ‘trained’ not to come where humans are. One of the reasons that the large predators are coming back into cities in broad daylight, and generally to where humans are, is that we are no longer shooting at them. Consequently, they no longer see us as an equal predator, or even as a threat. Contrary to the misconception that these animals are innately nocturnal, they have figured out that they can even get away with being out in the day time, so every year there are more reports of their daytime marauding on farms, and through garage bins in cities.

The assertion of my blog respondent, that I am in their territory, creates the misconstrued dichotomy of ‘their territory’ versus ‘our territory’, as if humans only ‘belong’ in cities, and that those cities have always existed. However, all North America’s great cities (the same goes for Europe, India, China and so on, though with different predators) were once the bears’ ‘territory’ before ‘we’ decided to stop being hunter gatherers and develop human settlements, based on cultivating crops.

The ‘our territory/their territory’ theory arises from a flawed preservationist philosophy, which mistakenly presumes that bears have a ‘territory’ which we humans have encroached upon, and now drives policy and legislative decisions in British Columbia (and North America in general, as shown in their responses to my blog). 

Am I really ‘in the bears’ territory’ when I am in the confines of my property’? If so, isn’t all of the North American population? And most of the European (or Chinese, or Indian, or African, etc.) population too, for that matter? The reason we have the few agricultural areas we do, is that we’ve shot almost everything that once moved there (hence the European eradication of wolves and bears and the dearth of them in large parts of the U.S. that they fo
rmally occupied), and continue to let the survivors know they don’t belong there anymore. Our food security depends on our making more enlightened land use policies based on historical and biological realities, not these neat, fantastical conspiracies of cartographers.

Despite the fact these regulatory bodies are responsible for ensuring the safety of genetically engineered crops, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), before they are approved for commercial use, a November 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office–the investigative arm of Congress–cited several problems.  One of the key shortcomings noted was a lack of a comprehensive risk assessment program that ensures these crops pose no risk to the environment, the agricultural areas that want to be GMO-free, and food safety.

The GAO has relied on voluntary reporting by companies like Monsanto and other GMO developers before selling new products they develop for the market. According to Lisa Shames, director of the natural resources and environment area of the GAO, the agency can only make recommendations to the biotech companies, but cannot compel them to take action.

Unlike the GAO, federal judges can compel organizations into action. While the USDA claims to ensure safety, concerns about the agency’s ability to balance the desire to support business development–making it easier for companies to develop new technology–and keeping the public interest foremost have been raised during recent court hearings.

In 2007, Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found the USDA negligent, ruling that the agency had violated federal law by approving commercial planting of ‘Roundup Ready’ alfalfa before the alfalfa was put through stringent testing.  Judge Breyer requested an environmental impact statement be prepared by the USDA that examines any possible deleterious effects the substance, which critics claim include the contamination of nearby non-GMO alfalfa fields.  This week, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s ban on Roundup Ready alfalfa, ruling that the federal district court overstepped its bounds.  While unlikely to speed up the planting of now-prohibited alfalfa, the

decision gives the USDA the ability to allow restricted or partial

planting of the seeds while it continues to complete an Environmental

Impact Statement, which the court agreed was indeed required under

federal law.

In a similar case, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffery White found that ‘Roundup Ready’ sugar beets had also been approved for commercial planting without adequate USDA evaluation. Judge White was critical of the USDA’s decision to allow Roundup Ready sugar beets to be planted, and stated that these technologically altered beets could have an adverse affect on the environment.  In a March ruling he told growers he “is inclined to order” that they “take all efforts, going forward, to use conventional seed.” He will consider a permanent injunction of the seed at a hearing on July 9, 2010.

“The courts have made it clear that the USDA’s job is to protect America’s farmers and consumers, not the interests of Monsanto,” said Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety Andrew Kimbrell after a hearing in September, 2009.  He said this should be a wake-up call for the US Government. The Center for Food Safety filed the sugarbeet lawsuit because of concerns that GM beet pollen could contaminate

non-GM and organic crops because sugarbeets are wind-pollinated. 

In an attempt to quell pubic outrage, the USDA recently began allowing public comment while debating regulatory changes. Keith Matthews, acting director of the US Biopesticides and Pollution Prevention Division, said “Transparency and open government is a major priority of the Obama administration.” 

Despite this move by the USDA, some scientists still believe their biological risk assessment program comes up short. Robert Peterson, a Montana State University scientist and leader of the university’s biological risk assessment program, believes the agency’s risk assessment program is “fundamentally flawed,” and stated that some biotech companies’ approaches are not “scientifically sound.”

In February 2009, 26 concerned academic entomologists issued a public statement to the EPA claiming they are prohibited from doing independent research thanks to technology agreements that biotech companies like Monsanto and others place on all the seed they sell. “No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology,” said the statement.

“We are all fans of this technology,” said Christian Krupke, an entomologist at Purdue University, “the problem is we are not getting access to ask the questions that need to be asked that maybe the companies don’t want to ask.”

This belief is held by people who are insulated from the essential biological condition of all animals, including the human one. The commonalities are: people refuse to hear facts from local people who know, preferring instead to will their own believed reality into existence; people get their information from television, where reality is at one remove and often distorted by Disney-fied commentary; despite the close encounters and reports of deaths, people insist that those incidents are the exception, that the responsibility for such attacks is the humans, who were too close, too unkind, too…, or that Nature has somehow let them down, backsliding from Her normal benign ‘co-existence’ model.

In his new book The War in the Country (Vancouver: Greystone, 2009), Thomas F. Pawlick recounts an incident in Algonquin Park, Ontario, when he advised a European couple not to have their photograph taken close to some nearby black bears with cubs. “Oh no,” said the woman, “we’ve seen bears on television lots of times, and people pet them and everything else.” Pawlick explained that not only were these wild bears, but also that one of them had cubs, which meant the mother would kill the couple on the spot. Ignoring his advice, the couple approached the bears until the mother stood up and growled, which prompted them to retreat, the woman complaining indignantly, “Well, that didn’t sound friendly.” (Pages 266-7) I have had the same experience here where I ranch.

The second commonality is deeply entrenched in our western urban psyche. From Disney to National Geographic, well-intentioned nature films, with their telescopic lenses and generally uplifting environmental commentaries, give the comfortable couch-sitter the impression that all nature–including the big animals–is there as a backdrop to uplifting or cute human encounters. Even ‘educational’ films about bear safety often feature individuals in close proximity to bears, safe only (I presume) in the knowledge that there is an array of sharpshooters just out of camera range. Whatever the unseen ‘big picture’ of these movies may be, they are irresponsible in not telling us the whole truth of their construction. Even the experts in these movies can be ill-informed, as the  sad example of Tim Treadwell (the “Grizzly Man” of the movie) and Amie Huguenard demonstrates.

In the opinion of another bear expert, Kevin Sanders, “Anyone that spends as much time in the field as Tim and I have, will no doubt have had similar experiences. I remember once out at my bear viewing area sitting alone one day, and feeling a bit sleepy in the warm sun I decided to lay back and close my eyes for a moment, when I remember feeling that something was watching me. I slowly raised up and looked around, only to discover that a family of six coyotes had moved in behind me, the adult alpha’s sitting within feet of me while the pups played nearby. After a few minutes, I decided to get up and walk across the meadow, only to have the whole family follow along beside me. The only difference between Tim and I is, Tim felt that the fox were kindred spirits, whereas I knew that the coyotes were looking at me as they would any other large carnivore in the wild, and that hopefully I would lead them to food much as a bear or wolf would do. Or maybe, I was the food! …

“Tim’s foolish disregard for his own safety, and over confidence dealing with bears in the past, luck really, not to mention his mistake of placing anthropomorphic values on bears, and disregarding established federal guidelines when photographing and camping with brown bears contributed to both Tim and Amie’s death. Grizzly bears are wild animals and should always be treated as such, wild and unpredictable. Not a pet, or lovable cuddly bear…. (Kevin Sanders, 2008)”

The third commonality is related to the other two, in that it, too, places humans at the center. I have often seen people going into bear areas without any defense system (knife, gun, bow), or carrying their pepper spray and clicking their rocks, every so often shouting “Yo Bear!” and secure in their belief that by intruding into bear territory openly yet adhering to the ’10 commandments’ of ‘being bear aware’ (making noise, clicking rocks, sticking to the trail, and so on) they will not really be intruding into their territory and thus will not have any deleterious encounters. “If we don’t bother them, they won’t bother us,” they are told, and so they believe. Jim West, who survived a bear attack in 70 Mile House British Columbia in 2008, by killing the bear and requiring sixty stitches on his head and body, was harassed for his actions. Gary Shelton documents several similar cases where bear attack victims were vilified by the (largely urban) public. He argues that so deeply held are people’s beliefs in our ability to intrude safely into the wild, that contrary evidence can cause psychic trauma:

“Most modern young people who have careers that require working in the field have university degrees. In many universities, like the ones in British Columbia, these people often obtain a view pint about mankind and nature that is incorporated into their beliefs about life. One principle in that viewpoint is that animals attack only when people have wrongly intruded on their space, and if you obey the rules of retreat, animals will back off as they don’t really intend you any harm. In some types of bear attacks on a person with such beliefs, where the bear exhibits behavior contrary to that belief system and the person is severely injured, their psychology of belief is also injured. This may sound minor in significance, but considering that this type of person is often someone who has embraced nature pantheism, the resulting trauma can be deep, lingering, and hard to diagnose. (Bear Attacks II: Myth & Reality, Hagensborg: Pallister, 2001,  p.147)”

To sum up, all three commonalities which lead to what I call ‘False belief #3: We can live in harmony with wildlife’ exhibit the human ability to deny reality in favor of a deeply held, prior belief. As Francis Bacon so wisely stated, “Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.”

See On Food Security and Bears, and On Food Security and Bears (Part II)

False belief #2: We are not in competition with bears

Many people don’t understand that, despite trappings of modern civilization that buffer us from this reality, we are in direct competition with wildlife for our existence. Not only have we lost sight of this fact, but we have also begun to believe that there is a way to ‘live in harmony’ with nature and we work hard to convince ourselves this is achievable.

If you are one of these people, then you are wrong to think this way and here’s why.

Everything out there is trying to make a living just as we are, from the bears, to the fish, to the squirrels, to insects, and bacteria.  Since humans have walked on this earth we have been in direct competition with nature for resources and thus have fought to protect these resources. If we weren’t successful, we starved.

Historically, humans hunted for our food and thus we understood our direct relationship with the natural world. We understood that if the wolf population was too high the deer numbers would be low and this would threaten our chance of survival. Consequently, humans understood we needed to kill some wolves in order to protect the deer numbers and, in this way, indirectly protect our own species’ survival. We understood we were, and must be, part of that equation.

Today, every time we spray our lawns with insecticide, every time we build a new home, each time we pave a road, each time we build a shopping mall or a university, each time we fell trees to make lumber, every time we fill our gas tank, every time we buy some product that has been shipped half way around the world, every time we buy packaged food from the grocery store, and so on, we displace and destroy (or already have replaced and destroyed) the native plants, insects, birds and animals–and the resources they depend upon for their survival–that previously existed in the are area in question for our benefit.

Today, however, few people would recognize the environmental cost to changing a track of forest into agricultural land and the inputs necessary to raise a cow, or a pig, or even an acre of soybeans to grow food for humans. Few would understand that it is environmentally more sound to keep the forest intact and harvest a moose who is perfectly suited to that forest and requires no artificial inputs, let alone be willing or able to make the lifestyle changes necessary to manage that resource.

Only those who can afford food can ‘afford’ to entertain this false belief system.

Few people in North America today rely on hunting or raising food on their own land for their direct economic survival. Instead, we have accepted that large swaths of nature should be severely altered (if not completely destroyed) in order that we can live in city suburbs, and that agricultural (and other) products can be made cheaply and can be transported long distances to us. So it is not that we are no longer directly in competition with nature, rather that the competition is out of sight and out of mind. We are no longer aware of it because we don’t see direct evidence of it on a daily basis.

California’s bears and other flora and fauna have been displaced and/or all but been destroyed, its landscape severely altered to make way for suburbs, highways, orchards and market gardening, and its waterways re-routed for irrigation, as have the Okanagan and Frazer Valleys in British Columbia, great swaths of the prairie provinces across Canada and the USA, and the Niagara region of Southern Ontario. These areas are some of the major agricultural production areas on which we North Americans depend most for our food production and, therefore, survival. That these areas were once wild, and remain domesticated only by force and vigilance, is an idea forgotten or ignored only by those who can afford to buy food instead of growing it themselves (provisioning). It is only those whose economic livelihood is not threatened, those who live an indirect economic lifestyle by selling their time for a wage so they can buy food, clothing, housing, etc., for their (indirect) survival, who can afford to uphold the misconception that we are not in direct competition with wildlife for our existence.

We all are in competition with nature, even urban dwellers. Ironically, it is urban dwellers who are, not only the most food-insecure because they are more dependent upon an agricultural production and distribution system that is completely out of their control, but also often the most unaware of how much competition they are in with nature for their survival. How many urbanites consider the tons of pesticides that are sprayed annually on wheat alone to keep the average crop from succumbing to weevils? While weevils are not bears, they too compete directly with us for our wheat!

See On Food Security and Bears

Which brings me to two other important points about direct competition.

The privilege of living close to nature

We have developed strategies for competing with all aspects of nature, from traps (mice and rodents), to fungicides, herbicides, insecticides (molds, weeds, bugs), to windbreaks and rip-raps (erosion by wind and water). We have become so conditioned to these agricultural weapons that we no longer see them as such. We certainly don’t see weevils on par with squirrels, or squirrels on par with grizzly bears.  Many bear enthusiasts would not object to a farmer spraying crops to prevent weevils from destroying it but would be horrified if the same farmer shot a bear to protect his apples. However, if you were dependent upon the apple crop for your livelihood, or to keep you from starving, you wouldn’t. The privilege of a full stomach affords us the luxury of seeing these two actions as vastly different.  Today, most North Americans would tell me to go buy the apples from the store and save the bear because they are no longer engaged in direct economics and can afford to be blindly unaware of the cold hard realities of what it takes to put food on their tables.

If you have a stomach full of food bought from the grocery store, then you can afford to see squirrels, deer, hawks, and bears as part of the wonders of nature and feel ‘privileged’ that they are traipsing through your yard and let them eat your berries, apples, and carrots. But even then, there is a big difference between tolerating squirrels, deer, and hawks, and tolerating bears and other large predators. Squirrels can’t kill you but large predators can. In order to keep our yards and communities safe, we cannot tolerate large predators in our human settlements, period.

However, if you are dependent upon the food you raise for your economic survival (directly or indirectly) you cannot even afford to let the squirrels eat your strawberries or the deer eat your apples. Imagine that every time a deer came in to your yard you lost 1/3 of your annual wage. How long would it take before the joy of seeing a deer would wear off?  How long could you ‘afford’ to feel privileged at losing 1/3 (or more) of your annual salary?  In order to have food security, you must have the right to defend the food.

In Defense of Food

In short, humans have a right to livelihood. By that I mean the right to grow food instead of se
lling our time, collecting a wage, and then spending it at ‘the store’ (where cheap food magically appears). We therefore have the right to defend our food sources just as we did in the past. Salaried employees don’t lose wages when a bear comes through their yards, why should a provisioner or farmer? Some will argue that that should be part of the cost of ‘doing business’ as a farmer. Many will argue that I (and other farmers) should buy electric fencing, install bear-proof feed bins, build bigger, stronger, bear-proof chicken houses and so on in order to prevent the bear conflict. I am against this line of thinking for three reasons: this argument is based on false belief #1 (See On Food Security and Bears, April 19–that humans can control bear behavior by removing all attractants); there is little enough (if any) profit to be made in farming these days and the additional cost would make their products out of reach for many consumers; and finally, fencing out large predators and leaving them to roam the neighborhoods around fence lines does not promote human safety.

If we want sustainable farming to be something that younger people choose as a career, if we want food security for our communities, if we want to have agricultural animals raised ethically and humanely, if we want good, clean, safe food, if we want the right to livelihood, then we have to support those who are willing to do the work and make it worth their while. Otherwise, we will have to accept that those farmers who could get well-paying, secure jobs elsewhere, should get them; that we will have food insecurity; that we will give up our right to livelihood; and that we will have to rely upon the corporate agricultural production and distribution system.

Finally, because we all need to eat and that act displaces large tracks of wilderness in order to ensure our survival, then the cost of maintaining wilderness with its full compliment of flora and fauna, in parallel with local food security, should be borne by all society, not just those who choose to live close to the wild and raise our food.

As ever, I welcome your feedback and comments as they can add to the discussion and help me develop my position.

A member of the British Columbia Food Systems Network recently wrote about their community’s experience with the Conservation Service. According to this source, the Conservation Officers (CO) in their area, instead of dealing effectively with any nuisance bears, are threatening people with fines if they don’t cut down their fruit and nut trees. While outraged with this Ministry’s attitude, I’m not surprised by it. Here in the Bella Coola Valley, too, people are being advised to cut down their fruit trees by the Conservation Service, instead of being offered support, protection (part of their motto!), and-oh, yes-conservation.

False belief #1: The ‘remove the attractant’ theory

In terms of food security, the idea that we must ‘remove all attractants’ to prevent bears from entering our communities is a dangerous line of thinking (particularly in light of our economic times). The logic may sound reasonable when you are living in the city and dealing with a bear in your garbage can. However, it is not consistent with the goals of food security, because in rural BC (or North America for that matter) there is no limit to the list of attractants. Therefore, we cannot have food security in our communities and be consistent with these Ministry guidelines.

Most specifically, and to put it simply:  if we ascribe to the notion that humans can control bear behavior by ‘removing the attractants’, then we cannot raise food. Fruit trees, berry bushes, carrots, and parsley all attract grizzly bears. Chickens, ducks, sheep, goats, and rabbits all attract grizzly bears. The duck feed, the goat feed, and the chickens’ corn all attract grizzly bears. Fields of corn and oats attract bears. Beehives attract bears. (Many of the above also attract a host of other predators that threaten our food security, such as eagles, foxes, wolves, cougars, mice, owls, hawks, martin, weevils, and so on.)

If we are to be consistent with the ‘remove the attractant’ theory, then the next ‘logical’ step is to pass public policy laws that forbid people from raising their own food. In order to ‘remove all the attractants’ we will have to cut down all the fruit trees, plant no vegetable or herb gardens, and get rid of all the feed and grain for our agricultural animals–chickens (see Needless Suffering), ducks, geese, goats, pigs, turkeys, sheep, and so on–lest we be seen to be ‘baiting’ the bears. Instead, maybe we could free range our agricultural animals?  No.  To be consistent with the ‘non-attractant theory’ we must leave it to the corporate agricultural producers who can afford (both ethically and financially) to keep animals indoors, behind Fort Knox-type fenced areas, or on feedlots.

New Jersey Example

The idea of removing the attractants simply doesn’t work. This line of thinking got the state of New Jersey into its conundrum with their bears. They have gone a long way down this path, having made city-wide efforts of removing the ‘attractants’ from their city streets and neighborhoods.  They have made huge efforts to limit the times in which garbage could be out on the street for collection, and even made centralized collection stations. Nevertheless, despite the fact they have removed all the so called ‘attractants’, bears have NOT stopped coming into people’s yards.  Now accustomed to viewing human settlements as good food sources, bears are now entering houses.  We should learn from their experience instead of continuing down the same path.

If we are going to have, and support, real food security in our province, we have to change the way we look at this problem. If not, then we will eventually lose the right to keep fruit trees, grow gardens, and raise animals for food. The evidence of this is revealed in the current attitude of British Columbia’s Conservation Service Officers.

Living under siege

The idea that humans are responsible to not ‘attract’ the bears is ridiculous. Humans have always grown gardens, had fruit trees, and domesticated animals in places where large predators roamed. Since humans have been on earth they have been in direct competition with other large predators for their food (livelihood) and, by shooting, trapping, snaring, or other aggressive measures, have trained these wild animals not to intrude into their human settlements. Until very recently, we have known and understood our relationship with the natural world; part of our role was teaching wildlife what is appropriate behavior. We have lost that understanding now that most of us buy food from the grocery store, agricultural production is out of sight and out of mind, and the closest we get to a grizzly bear is by watching the Discovery Channel.

It is time to re-educate ourselves to re-educate the bears. Even the Conservation Officer Service acknowledges that humans can ‘teach bears bad habits‘, so why not teach them some good ones?

Please feel free to voice your opinions in the comments section. I welcome the input, as it gives us all a chance to talk about this important issue. Your comments also provide me with food for thought, and the chance to develop my ideas.

Photo:  Bear Aware British Columbia and the British Columbia Conservation Foundation.  Bear and fruit tree (cropped).

What they found was surprising:  strawberry-kiwi Dole fruit juice boxes that they had bought for their children’s lunches seemed to be the source of illness.  At the time their children began having bouts of diarrhea, 12 of the juice boxes had been consumed. 

It was then that they noticed several of the remaining boxes were leaking and smelled putrid.

Immediately, the DeGroots made the link in their minds between their children’s condition and the off-smelling juice–which also had a worm on the outside of one of the boxes–and called the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

The CFIA considered the complaint but ruled out the link between the children’s illness and the juice boxes because the stool sample results that their family doctor had run revealed that the parasite responsible for the children’s illness was dientamoeba fragilis, a nonflagellate trichomonad parasite that can live in the human large intestine but cannot live outside the human body for more than a 48-hour period. 

Because the parasite cannot live outside the human body for more than two days, and the juice was consumed more than two days it was last in contact with humans, the CFIA concluded a fecal-oral route was the likely way the parasite had been transmitted.  Consequently, the juice boxes were off the hook, at least for the moment.

When the children’s diarrhea continued, their grandfather, Bill Mason, put further pressure on the CFIA to do more testing. 

Armed with additional evidence about the children’s condition, which would finally implicate food as the origin of contamination, he was able to convince the CFIA to complete further testing, and provided them with 6 additional juice boxes for further analysis.

The boxes failed the “leak-test”, and tests showed that there were levels of yeast, lactobacillus, and aerobic gram positive rods in the juice. 

Subsequently, the CFIA ordered 2, 613 juice cases destroyed due to weakened seams of the juice boxes. Juice boxes with such integrity problems can be a fertile source for bacteria and yeast to multiply–and multiply they did.

Further investigation by CFIA revealed that the juice boxes had been handled improperly during distribution and that the juice box distribution systems either had low quality control of Standard Operation Procedures, or none in place at all.

CFIA documents about this incident reveal that the food production and distribution system, in terms of food safety, is far from perfect. Were it not for the determination of the DeGroot family and Bill Mason, this issue may not have been discovered nor revealed to the public.

Like other multinational food companies, Dole has a co-packing arrangement for its product. Dole now requires its subcontractors to report immediately any damaged products.

Ultimately, more than 100,000 Strawberry Kiwi Dole juice boxes were finally destroyed last year following the government investigation.

Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, spoke on behalf of Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz in announcing a partnership with the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and the Government of Canada to develop a long-term international marketing strategy to expand Canada’s organic sector.

The Government of Canada’s AgriMarketing program will give $118,000 to the OTA for research into international market trends. This money is earmarked for participating in international trade shows, developing promotional materials, and building a long-term

international strategy for the organic sector, both domestic and international.

“We are excited about what this means in terms of building new international markets for Canadian organic products,” said Matthew Holmes, managing director of the OTA in Canada.

Almost $50,000 from the Government of Canada’s Integrated Food Safety Initiative will go to the Canadian Organic Growers Association (COG). The money will be used to develop a strategy for determining how current on-farm food safety systems can best meet the specific needs of organic agriculture. In consultation with organic farmers across Canada, the COG will choose five organic commodities for this project.

During the ACORN conference, Minister Shea announced that it is the government’s intention to support the organic farmers of Canada to develop markets and stay competitive, saying, “We want to give Canadian farmers and processors a competitive edge in the organic sector and help them meet consumer demands at home and abroad by providing organic products of the highest standards.”

In 2008, the Canadian organic retail market was valued at nearly $2 billion. This represented a 66 percent growth rate from 2006, when the organic sector retail value was recorded at $1.2 billion. Global organic sales were estimated at $50.9 billion (US) in 2008, and preliminary data shows that growth has continued through the global recession.

“The global organic market is expanding rapidly and this support will allow Canada to establish itself as a supplier of quality organic

products. When you know more about supply and demand in foreign markets, you are in a better position to make sales,” said Holmes.

The new daylight only inspections began Jan. 4.  The Star went public with its truck count on Feb. 19. Food entering

Canada outside of those hours designated for inspection must

wait until an inspector is scheduled to report for work before an inspection can take place and the truck can proceed to its destination.  As a consequence, many

trucks choose to ignore the regulation and pass on through to Canada with their loads. 

In

the U.S., every truck entering the country with food destined for its

citizens’ dinner plates is inspected. “In the States

if you miss going to an inspection, your fine is three times the load

you’re carrying,” said Marchuk, president of Windsor Freezer Services Ltd.  Together with Border City Storage, Windsor Freezer Services is responsible for conducting the import inspections in Windsor.  “Nobody skips inspections in the States

because it’s too risky,” Marchuk concluded. 

In contrast, Canadian fines are considered a joke since there is no real consequence for breaking the law.

The border inspection companies have joined New Democrat Border Critic Brian Masse–who discovered the flaw in the border inspection at Windsor–in calling on the federal government

to implement stiffer penalties for long haul truckers who avoid inspection. They would like to see the Canadian policies and fines align with the US policies and ensure the Canadian public that every truck carrying meat be inspected.

Food safety has been at the forefront of Canadian minds since August of 2008, when 22 mostly elderly Canadians died during a listeria outbreak traced to the consumption of packaged deli meats made at a Maple Leaf Foods plant, despite the fact the company recalled 23 packaged meat products. Since this event, Canadians were expecting the food inspection regulations to become more stringent and effective, not to mention enforceable.

“Canada’s

imported meat inspection regime needs to be strengthened immediately,”

said Kam Rampersaud from Border City Storage Ltd. (Canada). “US producers are becoming increasingly aware of the

lax inspection

standards at the Canadian border,” he warned.

“There is something desperately ironic about the situation where one

government agency goes overboard with a regulatory regime that

seemingly has nothing to do with actual food safety but that imposes

enormous costs on local small abattoirs and butcher shops while at the

border Canada has lost track of an estimated 70 trucks full of actual

meat products selected for inspection in the last few months,” said  Grant Robertson, of the National Farmers Union of Canada.

Although it is illegal to sell raw milk in Canada, consumers can own a share in the ‘source’ cow, which is what dairy farmer Michael Schmidt’s (owner of Glencolton Farms) customers do.

On January 21, 2010, Justice of the Peace Paul Kowarsky acquitted Michael Schmidt on 19 charges relating to the distribution of his raw milk. Because Schmidt had made diligent efforts to keep his cow-share program operating “within the confines and the spirit of the legislation”, JP Kowarsky concluded that the alleged offense fell into the category of ‘strict liability’; that is, criminal intent (‘mens rea’) could not be proved.

Schmidt had been prepared to do battle on a human rights level, and challenge the statutes on the ground that they violated his basic human right to ‘life, liberty and security of person’. 

In November of 2009, the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF)–an independent, non-partisan, registered charity–announced its support for Schmidt on the grounds that consumers have the rights to choose what they put in their bodies, freedom of contract, and freedom from government regulation that is ‘arbitrary, unreasonable, unnecessary, and unfair’. However, with Schmidt’s full acquittal, these complex legal issues may go unchallenged.

The Ontario government could choose to let the ruling stand, and live with the reality of cow-share arrangements. The existing cow-share system is a public response to restrictive legislation. However, this is not satisfying the general public, because many people who would like to be able to access raw milk are unable to access a cow-share program; consequently, they have approached the CCF to see if the organization can pressure the government to change the law.

Schmidt and his long struggle have gained wide public support: the more people learn about his plight and educate themselves on the scientific and potential health benefits of consuming raw milk, the more people seem to want free access to it. Since Schmidt was charged in November, 2006, the size of the herd he manages has doubled and there is a waiting list of consumers wishing to participate in Schmidt’s cow-share program.

According to Karen Selick (litigation director the CCF), the government of Ontario has three options:

1. Appeal this decision. The Canadian Constitution Foundation will represent Michael Schmidt in court if the Crown appeals.
2. Create new legislation that specifically outlaws cow-sharing and/or the consumption of raw milk. 
3. Develop a regulatory procedure that would facilitate the sale of certified, safe, raw milk for interested consumers without requiring a cow-sharing arrangement. Schmidt and others–like Ontario raw milk advocate James McLaren–have offered to work with government officials to help develop the certification process. As Selick said in her article ‘Got Milk Justice’ (National Post, January 26, 2010), “Michigan is doing it right now. Why shouldn’t Ontario?”

On February 12, the Ministry of the Attorney General confirmed it is appealing the ruling made in January by JP Kowarsky. A court date for the province’s appeal has not been set.