It’s been more than a decade since New Mexico experienced so many bear-human interactions. As a result, more bears have been killed this year than in any previous 12-month period on record. There’s a combination of reasons for that higher number of interactions, including drought.
“As that heat of summer started coming in,” said Nicholas Forman, bear expert and Assistant Chief of Wildlife for the New Mexico Department of Wildlife, “we expect them to be in the mountains kind of finding those natural food sources.” But this year those natural food sources were not available, and “a lot of our water sources were dry as well,” said Forman.
But there’s another important reason behind the higher number of deadly bear-human interactions: people unintentionally attracting bears by such acts as filling bird feeders, leaving out pet food, or not cleaning outdoor grills.
“We forget,” said Forman, with people valuing “the convenience of not having to pull the trash inside and everything like that.”
For any bears that start to associate food and water with people, relocating the bear is not always possible. In part, that’s because the New Mexico Department of Wildlife only has authority to relocate bears within the state.
“There aren’t very many places that you’re going to be able to move them” said Forman, that they cannot find humans again, whether attracted by the smell of a dumpster or a campsite.
So, when New Mexico Department of Wildlife investigators conclude a bear not only is associating people with food, but also has made that association a habit, they kill the bear to prevent the increased risk of a bear-human interaction leading to the harm or death of a person.
The bear meat, though, does not necessarily go to waste.
“We have a list of folks who are interested in – and this is the same for any kind of wildlife, whether it was elk, or deer, roadkill – anybody who would like to salvage that meat and use that meat,” said Forman.
Overall, Forman said the goal of the New Mexico Department of Wildlife is to prevent bear habituation in the first place. But since bears are going to behave like bears—searching for food and water wherever it’s available—co-existing with them safely means changing our behavior.
