Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

by Mary Roach

Dave Garshelis has worked with humans and bears for almost forty years. I asked him, by phone, how he felt about translocation. “People think this is a kind thing to do, but I’m not sure it is all that kind,” he said. Often it’s sows with cubs that get into trouble, because they need the most food. “Here she is living in her home range, teaching her cubs where the foods are. Now all of a sudden you plop her down somewhere else that she’s completely unfamiliar with. With a whole bunch of other bears which she’s competing with for food. You’re injecting them into a social system they’re not familiar with.” When bear biologists from the state of Washington surveyed forty-eight U.S. wildlife agencies, 75 percent said they sometimes translocate problem bears, but only 15 percent believed it was an effective way to resolve the problem. It’s more often done in high-profile cases, when media attention has put the animal and the agency in the spotlight. Generally speaking, translocation is a better tool for managing the public than it is for managing bears.