After Mink the bear gained regional notoriety for teaching her cubs to eat out of trash cans, New Hampshire’s Fish and Game Department sought to have the bears killed, until Gov. Chris Sununu stepped in with a pardon following public outcry.
While Mink and her family won hearts across New Englanders alike, the situation could have been a lot worse for the sow and her cubs.
According to data gathered by Fish and Game from 2013-17, the department says four bears are killed on average each year.
Had Mink wandered into the wrong backyard around her home of Hanover, she could have been one of the nine killed by the public each year due to a conflict.
“As the person that is highly involved in dealing with many of these situations and making many of these decisions, the well-being of bears is a major priority,” Andrew Timmins, the bear project leader for Fish and Game. “I’m about long-term solutions to bear-human conflicts and believe every conflict should be handled in a stepwise, mitigative approach.”
Mink the bear has been relocated twice, and wildlife officials are currently tracking her progress as she again makes her way back toward Hanover.
Mink has become a high-profile example of one of hundreds of human-bear conflicts that happen in the state each year, and what happens when they occur.
From 2013-17, the state saw an average of 519 bear-human conflicts annually. The highest number of conflicts recorded was in 2016 with 692.
Fish and Game sends many messages to the public about taking down bird feeders and securing trash bins for the summer and fall months.
“The availability of human-related food is most often the root of the ‘problem,’ but many people are reluctant to change their own behavior to eliminate these attractants,” Timmins said.
These interactions are characterized by the department as “conflicts,” a term that can be a little squishy.
Timmins said “conflicts” are “complaints made by people who are concerned about the presence of bears.” That includes damages to property, livestock or the home and it includes general sightings, which would be as simple as someone spotting a bear in their backyard and calling Fish and Game. Timmins said these general sightings are usually taken out of the data unless the people reporting are fearful for their property.
The average population of black bears in New Hampshire is estimated at 5,766 animals. Many conflicts come from bears that, like Mink, have learned to search for food in trash cans and grown accustomed to humans.
Some of those conflicts lead to a death sentence for a bear.
Fish and Game put down 20 bears from 2013-17 – including 12 in 2016 alone. In that year, nine were killed after they’d entered someone’s house. Two repeatedly entered vehicles and one had chronic behavioral issues. Two bears were killed in 2015: one had entered a home and the other had killed someone’s llama.
The department resorts to lethal action on a bear as little as possible. Over the five years, 10 cubs on average were rehabilitated and five bears were relocated.
“We kill very few bears and prefer to kill none,” Timmins said.
Fish and Game’s policy rings true in the data, at least compared to other ways Granite State bears meet an untimely end – the number of bears killed after a conflict pales next to the number of bears killed through hunting or car crashes.
Hunters took a whopping 719 bears per year on average, 200 more than the number of reported conflicts. Each year, an average of three bears were killed illegally. In the same time frame, about 50 bears were killed each year after being struck by a motor vehicle.
The actual numbers could be higher, as some people may intentionally not report their kills and/or accidents.
State law allows a person “to kill a bird or wild animal which the person finds in the act of doing actual and substantial damage to poultry, crops, domestic animals or the person’s property.”
Timmins said he thinks the law is too lenient, and the public takes advantage of it by not first seeking nonlethal options for an unwanted bear.
“There are times when some bears need to be destroyed but also times when these conflicts can be resolved by nonlethal means,” Timmins said. “I believe the state law should require the public to attempt mitigation before immediately using lethal force.”
One part of Timmins’s job is to promote ways to mitigate negative interactions with bears, like taking down bird feeders, securing trash, and using deterrents to protect livestock and pets.
“We would rather teach people how to coexist with these animals and be more responsible in terms of attracting bears,” he said.
(Jacob Dawson can be reached at 272-6414 ext. 8325, jdawson@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @jaked156.)