B.C. to count bears after report their numbers dwindling

B.C.'s environment minister Barry Penner has asked wildlife officials to update their bear population counts following a report in the Globe and Mail that grizzly bears are starving in the wake of collapsed salmon runs.

The Globe and Mail reported Wednesday that conservationists, salmon-stream walkers and ecotourism guides all along British Columbia's wild central coast say a collapse of salmon runs has triggered widespread deaths from starvation among black and grizzly bears. Those guides say the phenomenon has not yet been documented by biologists.

Mr. Penner said he is not alarmed by the frontline reports that the bear populations are in decline: Wild berry supplies are up, he said last night, and that may be encouraging bears to forage elsewhere. Mr. Penner said the "delayed" salmon returns mean bears are less likely to come into contact with humans.

Environment ministry staff will focus their survey on trying to estimate the bear population along the Kimsquit River north of Bella Coola, he said.

A grizzly bear expert yesterday dismissed claims British Columbia's coastal grizzly bears are dying of starvation because of declining salmon runs as alarmist.

"The likelihood that you have adult bears starving to death as a consequence of a decline in a single food source is very small," Sterling Miller, senior biologist with the U.S. National Wildlife Federation, said in an interview Wednesday with the Canadian Press.

"I don't believe it's credible from the evidence that I see quoted … that there's any reason to be concerned about the population of adult bears."

Mr. Miller, a University of Idaho professor who spent 21 years in Alaska studying salmon-eating bears, served on the B.C. government's grizzly bear scientific panel a few years ago.

He said the suggestion grizzlies on the central and northern coast, especially mothers and cubs, died in large numbers last winter because of poor salmon returns is anecdotal at best.

A coalition of environmentalists, including the group Pacific Wild, and tour operator Silvertip Ecotours, has called on the government to close all chum-salmon fisheries and cancel the fall grizzly-bear hunt.

Ian McAllister, conservation director of Pacific Wild, a non-profit conservation group on Denny Island near Bella Bella, said he's heard several reports about a decline in bear numbers.

"I've talked to stream walkers [who monitor salmon runs]who have been out for a month and have yet to see any bears," he said. "There are just no bears showing up. I hear that from every stream walker on the coast."

Tom Ethier, director of the Environment Ministry's Fish and Wildlife Branch, said earlier yesterday there are no plans to scrub the lucrative grizzly hunt, which opens Thursday.

Mr. Ethier and Mr. Miller said there's a direct correlation between the abundance of returning salmon and population density of grizzlies in a given area. The availability of the nutritious fish also affects whether female bears will produce cubs over the winter.

But Mr. Miller dismisses Pacific Wild's assertion that because bear-watching guides have seen fewer animals feeding on salmon, the bears have died.

"You cannot draw conclusions about the status of bear populations from sort of random observations along a salmon stream," he said.

It requires several years of data compiled systematically to reveal the population trend, he said.

Mr. Ethier said the ministry isn't discrediting what the conservationists and bear-watching guides are saying.

"I think they are keen observers of bears," he said.

"Their livelihood depends on finding and showing bears to the public. But we still think it's early and there's more data and information to come in for us to do the analysis and provide the recommendations."

With files from Mark Hume and the Canadian Press