Last spring, at the height of some of the most anxiety-ridden moments of the pandemic, my father read a poem to me over the phone. He’s 89 this year, and while he’s vibrant and healthy I don’t take for granted any opportunity to hear his voice — especially when he’s reciting a poem.
The poem, Mary Oliver’s Spring, describes the emergence of a black bear from its winter slumber. Oliver writes: “There is only one question: how to love this world.”
…the hostility towards bears and other carnivores is a tie that binds…
This spring, as bruins emerged across the American West, I found myself wondering about the secret lives bears lead. As their hunger grows, do they imagine eating trout from a Rocky Mountain stream?
Is it hunger pangs or some deeper yearning — perhaps to experience the new world – that drives bears from the comfort and warmth of their dens?
I’ve been thinking about bears and how to love their world because bear-management-practices have been in the spotlight recently, a light that intensified after two people were killed by bears, one in Montana and one in Colorado.
The death of those people was tragic. Yet, we must remember that fatal attacks remain rare. A bear does not wake up in the morning, pack a rifle, and set out to kill a human being. Bears struggle to survive in an increasingly diminishing wild that brings them in contact with humans more frequently.
Humanity’s mission, I believe, is not to kill them but to find ways to coexist.
On April 30, Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill that allows hunters to use hounds to hunt black bears in the spring, when they’re with cubs and ravenous for food. This is the same governor who illegally trapped and killed one of Yellowstone’s iconic wolves.
Yellowstone, USA. Photo: Delaney Van/Unsplash
One of the bills’ key sponsors, state Sen. Tom MacGillivray, offered a consistent refrain about bears: “Over the last seven, eight years we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the whitetail population, and, interestingly enough, a dramatic increase in the black bear population,” he said. “This bill helps to balance that out.”
Not a shred of science supports this contention. There’s a long-standing war on carnivores and blaming bears is a convenient excuse for what ails the deer and the deer hunter’s world. In reality, a complex host of factors including habitat loss due to sprawl, climate change and other dynamics are to blame.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, a federal judge struck down a controversial plan supported by the state’s wildlife agency, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department, to “study” whether killing black bears — and mountain lions — would benefit mule deer. Sadly, the judge’s ruling denying federal funding of the bear-killing plan came too late for the dozens of Colorado bears that were killed in the study, one the agency’s scientists had to know was laden with anti-carnivore bias.
Though Colorado and Montana are worlds apart on the political spectrum, the hostility towards bears and other carnivores is a tie that binds, whether it originates in a state legislature or in the state agency charged with managing wildlife.
At a time when the attitudes of most Montanans, Coloradans, and Americans at large are shifting dramatically to favor greater coexistence with fanged creatures, those in power over the lives of wild animals are digging in their heels. Instead of figuring out how to live with them, Montana and Colorado are making it easier to kill bears.
The word poetry comes from the Greek poetes, meaning “to create.” Whenever possible, I believe we should attempt to create opportunities for all life to thrive. It pains me that often those at the state level responsible for overseeing the management of wildlife seem to take more pleasure in the destruction of bears than in figuring out better ways for humans to coexist with them.
Wildlife management needs a new reason to exist, one that isn’t based on killing. Its mission might read like this: We aim to protect wildlife, making no distinction between predator and prey. We aim to enhance that sense of wonder most of us experience when we see animals in the wild.
And instead of taking more courses in traditional wildlife management, the profession might consider including reading some of the best American poetry inspired by nature and the creatures that depend on still-wild places.
They could start with Mary Oliver’s Spring.
John Horning is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is the executive director of WildEarth Guardians. Top photo: Danika Perkinson/Unsplash
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For a beautiful look at how similar humans are to bears, but also all living things, pick up a copy of Doug Chatwick’s new book, Four-Fifths a Grizzly, available from Patagonia.
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I agree that poetry has a place in sorting out our role in coexisting with other carnivores but I think science and rifles do, too. Independently, none of these tools is sufficient on its own … but the challenge for us is to use all of them to find a way to balance beauty, adventure and safety.
Since articles like this are intended to spark conversation, I’d like to ask this: do we really want our wildlife management policy directed by poets? Mary Oliver is amazing; it’s true. Yet one should be very concerned if she led our wildlife agency since our scientists have to make hard, data-based decisions to build on and maintain the great success we have had with wildlife management since we decoupled the economy and wildlife 100 years ago. Would Mrs. Oliver want that responsibility? That data crunching and grind? I think she rather observe and connect. And she has a lot of spaces to connect with wilderness thanks to these scientists.
There is some raw irony that this author states that there is no evidence that bears reduce deer populations and then celebrates a judge shutting down a legitimate, science-backed study. Bears do kill fawns. I watched a fat black bear lumber away from an elk calving ground two weeks ago. Wouldn’t it be critical to know the impact bears have on prey populations so we can better ensure predator populations don’t make prey populations crash? And now that wolves had made it back into Colorado (which is amazing), it’s all the more important to understand this dynamic.
There is no stepping away from the world–and responsibility–we created; this is the Anthropocene, first starting when humanity started burning grassland for deer pasture and planting grain. Throwing away science is no way to move forward in protecting our wilderness (and by wilderness I mean the complex interaction between animals and environment as it develops when ecology is intact, or mostly intact, including human interaction, that supports biodiversity). Our hard work over the last century to ensure wilderness exists shouldn’t be thrown away for poetic sentiments.
I don’t believe that the author intended that science be discarded. Rather he suggests that it not be flawed by the infusion of bias which has influenced agency stance toward carnivores for too long. I haven’t read the study or the federal judges decision, though I intend to to better understand this issue. One must assume there was adequate justification for the ruling.
Would be nice if the author would educate themselves on the facts of bear hunting before writing an article about it.
First of all, as Youguessedit pointed out, black bears are known throughout the country to prey largely on whitetail, elk, moose, and mule deer fawns and calves in the spring. Wildlife agencies have numerous fawn/calf collar studies that show the impact of predators, including coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, black bears, etc, on the ungulate populations we have.
Additionally in regard to Montana allowing for the use of dogs to hunt spring bears, and the author’s comment about “when they’re with cubs and ravenous for food” – the author failed to mention the point that both in Colorado and Montana it is illegal to kill a sow with cubs. So while the sow and cubs may be treed by the dogs, they will not be killed (at least legally). This practice is more tailored to hunters looking to harvest mature bruins, and will not have a significant impact on the lives or population of black bear in Montana.
Last, Colorado has completely done away with spring bear hunting and the black bear population has absolutely skyrocketed. If you spend any time in the back country of Colorado you certainly know this to be true.
This article talks about “science”, but is nothing more than the typical feelings based romanticization of bears and other iconic predators, completely disregarding the required population management of these species for them to coexist and thrive on the landscape with the ungulate populations they depend on.