In Alberta, it’s OK for people to shoot grizzly bears only if they feel their life or another person’s life is in danger.
The only course of action for ranchers if cattle are threatened is to try and shoo the bears away and report it to wildlife officers, who then deal with the animals, said Jeff Bectell, co-ordinater for the carnivores and communities program for the Waterton Biosphere Reserve.
If cattle are killed by grizzlies, ranchers can be compensated if they can prove it was a bear that killed their livestock. Compensation hasn’t always been easy to come by, and in some cases, it’s been frustrating for ranchers to deal with wildlife officers, Bectell said.
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“Wildlife officers do put human safety and protection high on their priority list, but sometimes when you’ve got few officers covering large areas, they can’t be everywhere as quickly as they would like to be,” he said. “That leads to frustration.”
However, he said changes could help ease concerns.
For starters, better projects to reduce conflict between people and large carnivores are needed.
That could include encouraging more producers to install electric fences and equipping grain bins with protection devices where appropriate.
As well, Bectell said the compensation program needs to improve.
“If a person is losing livestock and they’re having trouble preventing that loss, and the animal can’t be removed, if they know those losses will be fully covered, it allows people to be a little more patient.”
But there is no easy solution, he added.
“If the answer is we kill every bear, that’s not what society is looking for. If the answer is we pay lots of money for compensation and we don’t try to stop the predation from happening, that’s not the answer, either,” he said.
“Or, if the answer is we’ll just do a lot of really great projects and there’s no compensation when the project has failed and we’ll never remove a problem animal, that’s not going to work. You have to have all these pieces grinding together.”
