Drones Are Helping To Keep Grizzly Bears Far Away From People
From the mountains of Spain to the prairies of the United States, brown bears can be found roaming across much of the northern hemisphere.
These formidable creatures can weigh up to 1,656 pounds and have claws that are six inches long. Their sharp canine teeth can crush bones with ease.
Brown bears are powerful enough to take down prey larger than themselves. They are often portrayed as meat-eaters, but in reality, they mostly follow a plant-based diet because they are omnivores.
There’s not much a brown bear can’t eat. These bears have been seen eating wheat, nuts, and shellfish. They seek out many of the same foods that humans consume, which can lead to interactions between bears and people.
Since the 1970s, brown bears, or grizzly bears, have been a protected species in the U.S. As a result, some populations have increased significantly and now occupy a wider range.
Areas like Yellowstone and Glacier National Park contain so many grizzlies that they are moving away from the mountains and back onto the prairie, which is dominated by people and agriculture.
The grizzly’s return to the Great Plains bodes well for animal conservation, but it comes with the consequence of more human-bear conflicts.
Grizzlies pose a danger to humans. They can kill livestock and people and cause a great amount of property damage.
Luckily, attacks on humans are extremely rare. Still, people are concerned about living with grizzly bears, so it is important that their worries are addressed.
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As grizzlies have expanded to the prairie, locals demanded responses from officials. Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hired a bear manager for the Great Plains in 2017. Wesley M. Sarmento was the first bear manager based on the Great Plains.
After listening to people’s concerns, he decided to work on hazing the bears away from town with drones. Hazing involves chasing an animal away from somewhere or preventing it from practicing a specific behavior, such as attacking livestock. Skeptics thought hazing wouldn’t work or would just drive a bear to someone else’s land.
There was not much information about hazing, so Sarmento started testing how effective hazing was and if it conditioned grizzlies to keep staying away.
He approached his first bear with basic tools of the trade: a truck and shotgun with non-lethal deterrents, like cracker shells and rubber rounds.
However, his truck got stuck on the wet ground, so he was forced to go out to the bear on foot. The bear was agitated by the hazing and charged at him.
Fortunately, Sarmento was able to escape. After that risky endeavor, he turned to bear dogs to help him haze grizzlies.
Soon enough, he realized that they weren’t going to be a success. The dogs could not detect bears from far away, and they chased after the first animal they saw.
Finally, Sarmento decided to use drones. With the drones, he could drive bears to wherever he wanted, all from a safe distance.
Even at night, the thermal camera could be used to detect bears, and then the drone would fly in to move them away from town. Of all the methods, the drone performed the best and was not stopped by obstacles like fences and canals.
Over the years, the number of hazing events dropped, suggesting that bears were learning to stay away from people. The study was published in Frontiers in Conservation Science.
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