Arthur Digbee wrote:It's also a reason why Alaskan wolf harvests are too high, in that they disrupt wolf social structure and cultural traditions. Harvests of 10% or less per pack keep the "avoid humans" culture going, which is a good thing.

You know where I stand on wolf "harvests" (nice euphemism they made), so don't think I'm arguing in favor of slaughtering the wolves so hunters can get their antler trophies, but please explain to me why a "harvest" of over 10% doesn't keep the "avoid humans" culture going. With fewer wolves, wouldn't the survivors be more likely to avoid what had been killing them and pass that on?

Can't we all just get along ???

gwave47 wrote:

SoCalHiker wrote:"poor bear": post made by a troll

"too bad the bear didn't kill the hiker": show me where this has been said

"that's ridiculous the person was in the bears territory": show me where this has been said

use your brain, not your gun (or I forgot, you don't use it, you just carry it)

I will pm you some of these if you'd like to see where they appeared in other posts. Really don't want to start quoting people from threads created last year though. Then everyone will chime in and start defending their old posts.

Did I say the one in bold? If I did, I have no problem if you expose me as long as you do so in full context. That is totally something I have said and would say in cases where people through willful and informed recklessness and stupidity caused bear attacks that resulted in a bear being killed. I'm not talking about the sleeping camper whose food is stored 100 yards away but is attacked anyway, or the unlucky hiker who stumbles upon a fresh carcass or who inadvertently finds himself between a mother and its cubs; I'm talking about the idiot who gets out of his car to chase after cubs to get a picture (I've seen this in person in Yellowstone and Yosemite) or who keeps his trash or food in his tent or on the picnic table and attracts bears during the night. When a bear has to be killed because of those clowns, it pisses me off, and I don't give a rat's ass about what happens to them. There are accidents and tragedies, and then there are those who ask for it. Big difference.

And hey, just to confound those who want to call me a gun-hating leftist, let me add this: if some guy is going to get charged for shooting some intruder in his house at 3 a.m., he might as well kill the guy so the intruder doesn't go break into someone else's home a month later. If you're dumb or callous enough to break into someone's home, don't cry when you get hit with some slugs while doing it.

GerryS wrote:Centuries may not be enough time for substantial evolution, but it's plenty of time to develop instinct.

What are you basing this on? Instinct is an unlearned, innate behavior that is passed on genetically to offspring. As others explained, bears reactions and encounters towards humans are the result of learned behavior, not instinct.

mrchad9 wrote:

GerryS wrote:Centuries may not be enough time for substantial evolution, but it's plenty of time to develop instinct.

What are you basing this on? Instinct is an unlearned, innate behavior that is passed on genetically to offspring. As others explained, bears reactions and encounters towards humans are the result of learned behavior, not instinct.

As I said in an earlier post, of the dozens of bears I've run into all have run away just as fast as they could once they saw me. Since some of these bears were in protected areas, it seems pretty pretty improbable they've all 'learned' their fear of men. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe this fear to be instinctual. Either way -learned or instinct- it's a good thing for us; we owe our ability to travel relatively safely through their territory (even unarmed) to their fear.

mrchad9 wrote:

GerryS wrote:Centuries may not be enough time for substantial evolution, but it's plenty of time to develop instinct.

What are you basing this on? Instinct is an unlearned, innate behavior that is passed on genetically to offspring. As others explained, bears reactions and encounters towards humans are the result of learned behavior, not instinct.

Instinct might come in it too. If the bear is very hungry (or is polar bear that only eats meat), it might simply attack a man or woman in order to eat them, as it would attack any animal of suitable size that it met.

GerryS wrote:As I said in an earlier post, of the dozens of bears I've run into all have run away just as fast as they could once they saw me. Since some of these bears were in protected areas, it seems pretty pretty improbable they've all 'learned' their fear of men. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe this fear to be instinctual.

Makes sense to me. If the driving force is centuries of hunting, it seems bears' fear would be instinctual and not so much learned.

The ones who were killed learned a lot really fast maybe, but how then did they pass on this information to other bears? A group of bears (not that they even really live in groups) doesn't say to each other, "Hey, those two-legged things killed Fred. Let's stay away from them from now on!"

That hunting is a selective process on instinctual behavior makes more sense to me.

Just some thoughts. I'm not claiming to be an expert.

In some areas of the Sierra bears are much more afraid of humans than others. In some areas, there are bears with very little fear.

Just saying there appears to be some learned behavior going on one way or another, and no one here seems to have any data or research to back up what they are saying so the hypotheses may or may not be correct.

What I was getting at is that a few centuries doesn't seem like long enough to develop instinct to me, seems like it would take longer (but fear of humans may still be instinct, and lack of fear the learned behavior). If it is long enough I'd like to know, but appears no one else knows either.

mrchad9 wrote:a few centuries

I think it's more like dozens of centuries, not just a few.

But regarding your inquiry, I don't know the answer either.

mrchad9 wrote:In some areas of the Sierra bears are much more afraid of humans than others. In some areas, there are bears with very little fear.

Just saying there appears to be some learned behavior going on one way or another, and no one here seems to have any data or research to back up what they are saying so the hypotheses may or may not be correct.

What I was getting at is that a few centuries doesn't seem like long enough to develop instinct to me, seems like it would take longer (but fear of humans may still be instinct, and lack of fear the learned behavior). If it is long enough I'd like to know, but appears no one else knows either.

I can't cite specific data about that particular bear behavior, but I have read many, many books about evolution and I think it's a fair assumption that centuries are too short on the evolutionary timescale. And as I said before, killing a few (or many, does not matter) bears that behaved aggressively is not enough selective pressure to allow evolutionary change. Individual bears may "learn" during their lifetime to adopt a certain behavior of course.

mrchad9 wrote:...but fear of humans may still be instinct, and lack of fear the learned behavior...

I think that's more than plausible

mrchad9 wrote:What I was getting at is that a few centuries doesn't seem like long enough to develop instinct to me, seems like it would take longer (but fear of humans may still be instinct, and lack of fear the learned behavior). If it is long enough I'd like to know, but appears no one else knows either.

I don't claim to know this, either, but I do want to point out that grizzlies' ancestors arrived in Alaska from Russia about 100,000 years ago (from their stone porches, Sarah Palin's ancestors saw them coming), and they began moving southward around 13,000 years ago, which is also about when the first hunter-gatherer cultures arrived in North America.

When exactly people began hunting bears I couldn't say, but it is definitely more than a "few centuries" that humans and bears have coexisted. But I guess only an evolutionary specialist could say with any accuracy whether 10,000 years or so is enough time to develop instinct.

Evolution can take place quickly -- Grand Banks cod lowered their age of reproductive maturity from six years to two years in a couple of decades in response to heavy fishing pressure on large fish.

Ongoing speciation is being observed in the Galapagos and other islands.

Arthur Digbee wrote:Evolution can take place quickly -- Grand Banks cod lowered their age of reproductive maturity from six years to two years in a couple of decades in response to heavy fishing pressure on large fish.

Ongoing speciation is being observed in the Galapagos and other islands.

Of course, but one has to consider in what ecological niche the species lives, how strong the selective pressure is, what species it is (phylogenetic "lower" species tend to evolve much more rapidly), ....

SoCalHiker wrote:

Arthur Digbee wrote:Evolution can take place quickly -- Grand Banks cod lowered their age of reproductive maturity from six years to two years in a couple of decades in response to heavy fishing pressure on large fish.

Ongoing speciation is being observed in the Galapagos and other islands.

Of course, but one has to consider in what ecological niche the species lives, how strong the selective pressure is, what species it is (phylogenetic "lower" species tend to evolve much more rapidly), ....

I would have to agree with that. Something like occasional contact with humans by individuals is a different type of driving force than a something affected basically the entire population.