It's A Dog's Life - Herding Cougars and Bears

The wildland-urban interface is often the line between life and death for animals like bears and cougars.  Bears in particular are easily attracted to areas where garbage is easily accessible.  The failure of humans to effectively secure garbage and other food sources place bears and humans in a situation where the bear is likely to be killed to “insure public safety.” 

Often the first step is to relocate a bear that has become accustomed to foraging in the neighborhood trash cans.  Unfortunately, 90% of relocated bears return to the neighborhood food sources within weeks of their relocation.   As an end result the bear is often killed.

Several Western states are trying a different approach to managing the wildlife-human interface.  Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and California have gone to the dogs for help.  Specifically, each of those states are utilizing Karelian bear dogs as a key component of bear management.   In Washington state a team of Karelians work at a variety of wildlife management tasks.  

Barking at bears, romping through the forest, sniffing for poaching evidence, getting petted by a child and maybe cooling off with a swim in the Pend Oreille River. 

 It’s all in a good day’s work for Jax, a 1-year-old Karelian bear dog employed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. 

“The beauty of this breed is that Jax can be calm and licking the fingers of a kid one moment and then turn it on when he’s on the ground scaring the heck out of a bear,” said Keith Kirsch, the Spokane Region Fish and Wildlife police officer who trains, houses and handles Jax full time. 

The agency’s six Karelian bear dogs are being used across the state for wildlife research, enforcement and for conditioning bears, cougars and moose to avoid humans. The dogs also are ambassadors and conversation starters for public wildlife education.

Karelian bear dogs are considered national treasures in Finland.  Bred to assist in the hunting or bear, lynx and moose, they are fearless.  Yet, their hunting behavior can be modified and they can be invaluable assistants in many critical aspects of wildlife management,

"They have the genetics to do it all very well,” said wildlife biologist Rich Beausoleil, the agency’s bear-cougar specialist in Wenatchee.

Beausoleil handles a Karelian named Cash that’s been trained for a variety of work. In some cases, Cash will scent bears and cougars and chase them until they go up a tree so they can be tranquilized for wildlife study and collaring without having to be trapped.

“Cash has dealt with 500 bears and 130 cougars so far in his career and saved a lot of staff time,” he said. 

Bears and cougars are routinely killed by fish and game personnel when they get to close to human developments.  The use of Karelian bear dogs to locate and condition these animals is a safe and humane way to save them.

By the way many of these programs are self-funded.  You can help them out here and here.