AR-News: Trained dogs used to chase away bears

[jim robertson]

Trained dogs used to chase away bears
Dogs bark madly to teach bears to stay away from camps, yards


Associated Press


KANASKAT, Wash. _ These are not your average Fidos.

State Fish and Wildlife officers used a team of specially trained dogs 
Friday to chase away a bear released in a southeast King County park.

It was the first time that Karelian bear dogs had been used in Washington 
state.

The dogs, bred in Finland, are trained to bark ferociously and chase and run 
after bears as a way of teaching them they're not welcome in campgrounds, 
backyards and other places where people want to be wi
thout ursine companions.

The 400-pound male black bear was trapped in the backyard of a nearby home 
in Palmer on Thursday. It wandered into the Deveraux family yard and got 
into the dog food, and then returned every day for more than a week.

"He would sleep by the back door," Jeanne Deveraux said with her 2-year-old 
daughter, Emma, in tow. "He's very comfortable. That's what scares me."

Once trapped, the bear was driven from the Deveraux home to Kanaskat-Palmer 
State Park on the Green River.

The cylindrical bear trap was parked in a day-use area of the park, while 
the trap was surrounded by the dogs and wildlife agents armed with shotguns 
loaded with beanbag rounds and rubber bullets -- as well as some live 
ammunition, just in case.

The dogs look much like border collies but are taller and have curly tails. 
When the trap opened, Rocky Spencer, the only wildlife biologist in 
Washington who owns a Karelian bear dog, said, "Good boy, good bark, bark at 
the bear!" to his dog, named Mishka.

The officer began yelling, "Get out of here, bear! Get out of here, bear!"

About 30 seconds later, the bear peered out, apparently thought better of 
hanging around a bunch of people with shotguns aimed at him, and charged 
away -- but not in the direction the experts expected.

Instead of running toward a treeline, he dove beneath a Fish and Wildlife 
truck, and then headed down a wooded embankment toward the Green River as 
agents fired rubber bullets into his rear end. The agents fired a final 
noise-making shotgun round for good measure.

The idea, officials said, is to make the experience so unpleasant for the 
bear that it won't return to places frequented by humans.

"He's getting a chance that most bears don't -- a chance to live," said 
Carrie Hunt, a bear expert who founded the Wind River Bear Institute in 
Heber City, Utah, nine years ago.

The institute's goal is to develop an alternative to dealing with problem 
bears. In most cases, she said, bears are simply either moved from a 
location and most often return, or they're killed.

She was hired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to train agents from 
several states and agencies in the use of the bear dogs.

As for the dogs, a job well done earned them jerky treats.




"One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or 
torture an animal and get away with it" —  Margaret Mead.

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