Yogi Bear is smarter than the average bear, and quite possibly, smarter than the average park ranger. In the real world however, Yosemite park officials have finally outsmarted the local population of human food-loving bears.
The Yosemite National Park black bears have a reputation for stealing human food. There are currently hundreds of black bears living in the vicinity and due to their large numbers, park officials have not bothered keeping count. A decade and a half ago, incidents of black bears stealing human food have become so common that the park officials started enacting strict rules regarding bringing food into the park
"Yosemite has a rich history of bear management practices as a result of shifting goals over the years. What we found was that the diets of bears changed dramatically after 1999, when the park got funding to implement a proactive management strategy to keep human food off the landscape," said Jack Hopkins, a former graduate student from the Montana State University who now works as a biologist for the Yosemite National Park.
Hopkins and a team of researchers have conducted a study to determine the amount of human food the Yosemite bears were eating. To determine just how much of their diet consisted of human food, the researchers analyzed certain isotopes in black bear hair and bone samples. The team's findings will be published in the upcoming March Issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
To prevent the bears from gaining access to human food, park officials sanctioned the use of bear proof food storage containers. The park also established a "bear team" to make sure that park visitors followed the rules on food storage in park grounds.
To keep bears from stealing human food, Hopkins said that the best solution is to nip the problem in the bud. If bears are prevented from becoming accustomed to eating human food, the problem will naturally go away. Hopkin's observations of the bears in the park indicate that the exposure of young bears to human food early on will continue well into adulthood. Even if the problematic bears are relocated, they eventually end up going back to areas of the park with high concentrations of human food. When these problem bears are found, park officials have no choice but to put them down to keep the behavior from spreading to younger bears.
"People like to see bears, and they don't like to hear about bears being killed. But the bears they often see in visitor-use areas like Yosemite Valley are the ones that are conditioned to eat human food, and those are the ones that become problems and have to be killed," Hopkins said.
