Feeding nuisance bears may be a good idea
By Lia Kvatum, National Geographic News
It flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but one solution to control nuisance black bears in the United States may be to offer them snacks, one biologist says.
Especially in the western United States, black bears will often break into cars, homes, and campsites in search of food. And as humans increasingly move into bears’ habitats, more bear-human interactions have been occurring, experts say.
Many scientists say feeding black bears makes the animals more aggressive, in part because the animals come to see people as food sources. But black bear biologist Lynn Rogers thinks it may not be so clear-cut. Instead, hunger is largely to blame for so-called nuisance behaviors, he said.