Contact: Mike Cenci, (360) 902-2938

Ten bears removed from Long Beach Peninsula town

OLYMPIA - Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) officers and biologists last week removed 10 black bears that had been fed by people from the town of Oysterville, on the Long Beach Peninsula in Pacific County.

Five of the bears - female adults and cubs - were relocated to Mount Rainier National Park. Another five were so dangerously habituated to people that they were euthanized. Meat from the euthanized bears was donated to an area food program.

"I hope we never have to do anything like this again," said WDFW Enforcement Sgt. Dan Chadwick, who helped coordinate the bear removal in response to public-safety concerns about the growing number of bears in the area.

"I've never seen such a concentration of bears in such a small area. It was completely unnatural and it was caused by people feeding wild animals," Chadwick said.

A bear that learns to associate people with food is a potentially dangerous bear, and cannot be relocated in the wild, Chadwick said.

"We can't risk human life by releasing a bear that would cause problems for other people," he said. "A fed bear is a dead bear. We keep trying to communicate that, to try to prevent situations like this one."

The Oysterville bear-feeding situation apparently had been going on for some time before a complaint was made, according to WDFW officers. Most, if not all, the bear feeding was conducted at one residence. The residents told WDFW officers they were spending $4,000 a year on dog food to feed the bears.

Neighbors reported they became concerned when more and more bears showed up looking for food.

The bears were so familiar around people that when a WDFW officer arrived on the scene, one of the bears crawled into the cab of his pick-up truck, said WDFW Deputy Chief Mike Cenci.

"This was a tragedy for wildlife," said Cenci. "We were obligated to act to prevent a human tragedy as well."

Wild animals of all sorts need to be afraid of people. I tell my friends that killing a wild nuisance animal is an immediate fix, but not one that has any lasting result. If you shoot at it (not hitting it), throw rocks and sticks, yell....whatever comes to mind that is non-lethal, it will pass it's gained knowledge along to it's offspring, doing all concerned a great favor.
Kinda takes the "Look what a great coyote/raccoon/etc. killer I am!" glory out of it, doesn't it? Nah, never mind.
IMO, feeding wild animals is only a notch dumber than shooting a young, learning one.

Some nuisances are human created, like feeding animals on purpose. This situation is a shame. The people who created this shoulder all of the blame.

Other times there is predator control where you create a multi-layer security for you livestock, say chickens in my case, where you have wire dug in 18" into the ground, both 2x4 welded wire and 1/2" hardware cloth on the walls and top of the run, plus a fairly stout electric fence.

Surely there are some predators who encounter the electric fence and they don't return, but those who do persist, or decide to snoop around our property for food, get trapped and dirt napped.

When you are protecting livestock, predator control makes sense. Attracting predators at any time makes no sense, unless you aim to control their numbers through culling.

I have 32 little feathered meals running around, and I'll do my best to see they are protected. I don't see them as learning tools for young predators.

DF, do you protect your birds from overhead predators as well?
Anyone who digs 18 inches down to establish a security fence is into it.

They do have a 300 SF covered run they stay in all day. I only let them out to free range wen I'm home.

Is this something that gets discussed around the dinner table?

Stupid people everywhere.....Game Dept just whacked a couple bears in Leavenworth because of the same situation. Some idiot was feeding them molasses for quite awhile......

All in fun until someone gets eaten.

Whomever fed them should serve a month or two just for GP.

I think they should be given a bear rug from the euthanized animal to remind them of their benevolence.

I completely agree with you. I would make them euthanize the bears too.