Baitingand’HoundingBears:’ A’Case’Study’from’Washington ... ·...
Transcript of Baitingand’HoundingBears:’ A’Case’Study’from’Washington ... ·...
Baiting and Hounding Bears: A Case Study from Washington State
Lessons Learned for Maine
Photo credit: PAWS Wildlife Center of Lynnwood, WA
By Gary M. Koehler, Ph.D.
Prepared for Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting
May 29, 2014
Paid for with regulated funds by Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting PO Box 15367, Portland, ME 04112 2
Gary M. Koehler retired as Research Scientist for Large Carnivore Investigations with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Idaho and has spent the past 30 years conducting research on a variety of carnivores: including pine marten, wolverine, bobcat, lynx, cougars and American black bears in North America, to lions in Africa and tigers in China and India and snow leopards in Mongolia and Nepal. He has published findings of these studies in scientific journals as well as in the popular press. Prior to returning to his native Washington state, he spent 3 years in Kenya, where he taught and helped develop a wildlife management program at one of that country's leading universities.
Paid for with regulated funds by Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting PO Box 15367, Portland, ME 04112 3
Introduction: In 1996, 63% of the Washington voters passed Initiative 655. The initiative prohibited hounding and baiting as means to hunt black bears and cougars. The following hunting season after its passage, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) sold bear licenses at a reduced rate because of perceptions that large carnivore populations would grow out of control. Bear licenses sold by DFW had their prices reduced, from $18 to $10, to encourage more hunters. Also bear and cougar tags were packaged with big-‐game permits for elk and deer as another incentive to maintain harvest (Koehler and Pierce 2005). DFW also lengthened the bear season, and increased the bag limit on bears from one to two per person (Koehler and Pierce 2005). Eighteen years after the passage of Initiative 655, prohibiting of hounds and bait, the numbers of bears harvested increased by 16%. Figure 1. Because of Washington’s incentives to increase hunter participation, hunters and harvest increased dramatically.
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Figure 1
Hunter Harvest of Black Bears in Washington, 1991 to 2012
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Paid for with regulated funds by Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting PO Box 15367, Portland, ME 04112 4
Bear-Hunting Mortality Increased After Initiative 655: Before the ban on hounding and baiting, and using data from the years between 1991 and 1996, the average number of male bears harvested was 873. In the post post-‐ban period, for the years 1997 to 2012, the average number of males in the hunter harvest was 1,011, a 16% increase from the pre-‐ban period. Figure 2. The average number of females in the hunter harvest in the period before the ban, for the years 1991 to 1996, was 449. After Initiative 655 passed, the average number of females in the hunter harvest was 521 (for the years between 1997 and 2012). This is also a 16% increase in hunter harvest. Figure 2. In three study areas of Washington, bear population and survival remained stable after the passage of Initiative 655 (Koehler and Pierce 2005). Our study showed that males are much more vulnerable to hunter harvest than females. Overall mortality, which included hunter harvest, poacher kills, wounding losses, depredation controls, and natural causes, was greater for males too (Koehler and Pierce 2005). We showed a 27% mortality rate for males each year, compared to 7% for females (Koehler and Pierce 2005). Surprisingly, we found that about 20% of hunters did not report their bear kills to the state (Koehler and Pierce 2005).
The Numbers of Hunters Doubled Following the Baiting and Hounding Prohibition: Prior to passage of Initiative 655, the numbers of bear hunters averaged 12,174 for the years 1991 to 1996. After the ban on hounds and bait, the average number of hunters nearly doubled to
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Average of Hunter Black Bear Harvest Before & After Baiting and Hounding
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Paid for with regulated funds by Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting PO Box 15367, Portland, ME 04112 5
24,032 (a 97% increase for the years 1997 to 2012). The numbers of bear-‐hunting licenses sold jumped by an average of 343% for resident hunters, from approximately 13,000 to 57,000. DFW also sold, using an average of the numbers for the pre-‐ and post-‐initiative periods, 97% more bear-‐hunting licenses to non-‐residents after the ban. Conclusion: This Washington case study has important implications for wildlife managers in Maine. Eighteen years after hounds and bait were prohibited in Washington, the numbers of bears harvested increased by 16%, the numbers of hunters participating in bear hunts increased by 97%, and the numbers of licenses sold increased by 343% for residents and by 97% for non-‐residents. In short, discontinuing baiting and hounding in Washington did not result in a lower harvest of bears. The agency has learned through biological studies, including mine, that bears (and cougars) are limited by their environments and behaviors, and not just reliant on human hunters to manage their populations. Also important for Maine wildlife managers’ consideration, we found that in Washington, during our study, which included a period both before and after the Initiative, that almost 20% of hunters failed to report bears they killed. This high number of unreported kills was a surprise to the agency. References: Koehler, G. M. and D. J. Pierce. 2005. Survival, cause-‐specific mortality, sex, and ages of American
black bears in Washington state, USA. Ursus 16:157-‐166.