How LGDs react to a bear

[lovetree]

If we did not have neighbors and highways to contend with, I agree that if you throw enough dogs at the problem eventually it will burn itself out. But such is not the case. IN order to get a handle on those coyotes, we would have had to allow our dogs to chase them for about one mile from the farm, and we would have had to be devoid of deadly obstacles like angry neighbors or highways.

You definitely have been between a rock and a hard place ....and I am still saddened by the loss of your dogs.
The coyotes that we have here surround our property and howl and yip at our dogs trying their best to draw them out, but the dogs have stayed tight to the property, it does make a difference how the property is laid out. We do have an advantage since our 200 acres is basically contiguous. We have a county road cutting through the middle of the property, but that traffic is nothing compared to an interstate, and our dogs can run after the coyotes if need be and get to the end of our property before ever crossing into the neighbors.
My son and his friends wanted to hunt the coyotes here, but we would not allow it since we want to keep the bunch that we have because they seem to have been able to coexist with us, so far

[Janet McNally]

an important part of what I'm trying to say here, Mary, is even with your 16 years, and my 28 years of using LGDs, I think we are entering into a new dimension of predator behavior, made even more difficult by development , but that the idea of a predator, being allowed to exist with out any hunting pressure from humans is infact, never been tried prior to 1970 and we are just beginning to see how this impacts the behavior of predators. I'm not talking about a decade or two, but a quarter century at a time of change. Again the book really gave me an ah hah moment when I saw how the absense of hunting (combined with a number of other factors created by living in close proximity with wildlife) made a big difference with how in that case, cougars behave. This was further reinforced by searching for info on humans killed by cougars. They are almost exclusively in areas where cougar hunting is not allowed. I think it is important to realize, that our success lies partly in the fact that most of our predators here are still hunted to some extent with the exception of the wolf. Reports are that wolves are changing, just as the man eating cougars have changed.

This is important for those living in areas where large predators enjoy full protection. I'm not saying the producer has to take up hunting, but the policy of banning hunting is coming back to haunt people living in these areas and is making it more difficult to successfully fend off large predators with LGDs as is the case for western producers dealing with both protected wolves and protected bears.

To further support my case, even wildlife managers in Yellowstone came to realize they had to kill some bears, and use rubber bullets and bean bags on others to dissuade these bears from visiting camp grounds. Previous efforts to use less injurous means proved futile.

Perhaps the closest analogy I can come to, is the fence buster ewe. If the only tool you had was to chase her back in the fence with dogs, what eventually would happen over time? She would teach more and more sheep to follow her out of the fence. Ultimately the best solution is to cull the ewe (i.e. lethal) before she teaches more animals to creep through the fence. whether the benefit is to have removed a ewe with a genetic propensity to escape, or whether we just prevented her from training others is relatively unimportant.

I am only saying I am changing my pov that hunting is irrelevent to depredation, to one of *some* hunting may be necessary to keep predators wild.

[Darroll Grant]

Locally we have had coyotes living in town in brush on undeveloped lots. A 60-70# cougar strolling through a sub division on a Sunday afternoon unafraid of people 40' away. A couple days later seen out of the rain on a covered patio. When shooed off it headed further into town. One also jumped into a 6' dog kennel to snack on the lab inside. It is a matter of time before someone is attacked. Behavior has changed and numbers greatly increased after the use of trailing dogs was banned.

[Janet McNally]

Hi Darroll, do you live in one of the areas where hunting cougars is prohibited?

kinda sounds like it by the description above. you would probably find that book above quite riviting as you may find your area is not far away from cougars dining on people. The ones in Boulder colorado started to stroll around the suburbs in broad daylight and dined on pet dogs in back yards, then moved on to people.

Janet

[Darroll Grant]

The people voted out hounding bears and big cats some years back, but hunting them is still permitted. However, one has to see them to shoot them. At the time I said we were moving closer to big cats dining on people. Cat populations have increased significantly and WS works regularly on problem cats that kill stock or develop into a health and safety issue. The state wildlife folks have been involved in thinning out the big cat population in some areas. It would be cheaper to 'turn the dogs loose' and put a bit of fear in the culprits. Surprisingly bears are much less of a problem both in numbers and damage when one discounts those who feed bears in their yards.
A big cat in my yard would not surprise me as I have evidence of them within 1/2 mile in all 4 directions and this is an area of 4-5 acre parcels with a house on each.

[lovetree]

Hi Janet,
I am not arguing with what you are saying, I am just trying to point out that the info that your book is expounding is not anything new.
When I lived in Ca. I used to rehab horses that had been attacked by cougars. Most of the horses I worked with came from the Sacramento area,...they werent from remote areas.
I myself lived only three miles inland from the beach, and cougars came through our ridge on a monthly basis. It was common knowledge that if you had livestock,then you also had "yard dogs". We had a small herd of goats and our "outside "dogs were german shepherds and a large doberman.
They were very effective at keeping the wild boars, bobcats,coyotes, and the occassional cougar away, but they did not live with the stock, they simply patrolled around the goat pens. We never lost an animal, but our neighbors who did not run any dogs did lose a few goats.
We didnt dare kennel any dog outside without a secure roof on the kennel. Dogs that were kept in "topless " kennels we referred to as "cougar chum".
No one ever tied a young or small dog outside, that was simply "trolling " for trouble.
When I say that cougars and bears hate dogs...I mean that they hate dogs that are aggressive, dogs that naturally will take a protective and assertive position. A submissive, scared or stupid dog becomes a snack.

It is not unusual for any predator that is not threatened to turn to easy prey such as house dogs, cats, and people, predators are simply opportunistic. I believe that it is in India and parts of Europe where the "natural diet" listed for wolves and big cats includes humans (especially children).

It was approx 24 years ago when Dave and I were hiking in the Beaver Flat Top Mt. range in northern Colorado when we became aware that we were being stalked by a cougar... we immediately changed our direction and left the narrow path we were on, if we had not had the hunting experience we had, the story may have ended differently.
We were hiking where cougars were hound hunted.
(we did not have a dog with us)

[Muleflock]

When I worked in WI, I often treated Red Bones and Plott hounds that had been slapped silly by bears. I did have one client that used huge Airedales. He went through a few of those in the year I was there.

[Island Shepherd]

I've done my share of bear, cat and coon hunting with hounds. Some of the best bear dogs are something like the one in the video. They bay the bear, and maybe go in for a quick nip when the bear is focused on another dog or something, but mostly stay back and bark. With the real agressive dogs like airedales, pitbull crosses or extra gritty Plotts you are always stitching, or shoveling. A good dog must be brave enough to hang with them and not spook off but be smart enough to not get chomped.

We can still bear hunt with hounds, bait, and foot snare, here despite a big referendum attempt a few years ago. We already have enough nuisance bears without outlawing hunting. That would have been a disaster as it has been elsewhere. We don't officially have lions although people report seeing them frequently. They must go to Florida for the winter because when there is tracking snow no one ever sees them. We do have lynx but they are timid rabbit eaters for the most part.

Interesting topic. I'd love to tree a lion with dogs sometime. They say jaguars are starting to spread out of Mexico into South Texas-Arizona area where they used to be found years ago. Woolgrowers and illegal aliens beware, those jokers take no prisoners.

[Darroll Grant]

Several years back a South African friend related that a number of lions in Kruger park between SA and Zimbabwe were living on people exiting Zimbabwe for SA through the park. Identification of prey was down by scat studies.

[Paul DeWitte]

A few years ago I read a book about a British army officer in India. I think that this took place in the 1930s. He was either hired or ordered to hunt down cats that had been killing people. He used young cattle as bait, and would stake them out, and wait for the cat to show up.

EVERY cat that he killed that had been attacking people had something physically wrong with it that it could not hunt like a normal cat for whatever they usually ate.

Finally his nerves gave out and he quit doing it. I think that his hunting was all done at night.