DEREK REICH/ZOOPRAX PRODUCTIONS
CARRIE HUNT AND HER TEACHING ASSISTANTS
MARCH 27, 2000
Carrie Hunt
Hunt's Dog-and-Bear Show
Amid the splendid wilderness of Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, a two-year-old black bear known as Snuffy is nosing around the Castle Mountain campground. Suddenly two shotguns blast rounds of beanbags and rubber bullets into the bear's rump. Snuffy jumps three feet into the air and scrambles for the safety of the forest with five park wardens, two biologists and two Karelian bear dogs in hot pursuit. As shouts of "Go away bear" fill the air, the besieged creature shinnies up a tree while the dogs bark furiously below. Then the well-trained canines fall silent on command, and the bear, sensing a chance to escape, crashes down from the tree and speeds off into the deep forest, far away from any more campsites and howling dogs. "That was perfect!" says Carrie Hunt. "I think Snuffy¹s got a chance, but we¹ve got to keep on him."
Lots of bears have a better chance to survive, thanks to Hunt, a biologist. As director of the Wind River Bear Institute of Heber City, Utah, she travels through the Northwest U.S. and Southwest Canada, training troublesome black bears and grizzlies to stay away from homes and campsites. Always with her are her stern teaching assistants, the Karelian bear dogs. While these black-and-white husky-like dogs were originally bred in Finland and Russia to hunt moose, their prowess at going after bears gave them their English name.
In Hunt's hands the dogs have become the bears¹ best friends. When bears lose their fear of people and begin to associate humans with food, they keep going where they don't belong, and it's only a matter of time before they are shot or caught and destroyed. The problem stems not only from tourists who feed bears in parks, but also from private landowners who inadvertently attract the beasts with dog food, bird seed, barbecue grills, gardens and bee hives.
Those are just the kind of traps that Hunt and her dogs teach bears to avoid. In 1998, for example, the Montana Fish and Wildlife Service gave Hunt credit for saving 14 grizzlies that would otherwise have been killed. They were among 68 Montana bears that had instructive encounters that year with the bear-dogs. "Wonderful, gentle bears would die because nobody taught them the rules," says Hunt, "and that¹s why I do this." For Snuffy¹s sake.
|
HEROES FOR THE PLANET
heroes gallery
Cynthia Moss
Pavel Fomenko
Marc van Roosmalen
Peter Pritchard
Anna Giordano
Becky Weed
Carrie Hunt
Robert F. Kennedy and John Cronin
William McDonough
Peter Raven
Sylvia Earle
Russell Mittermeier
Yvon Chouinard
MAP ROOM
Endangered Primates
An exclusive look at the 25 most endangered primates and where they live.
WILDLIFE WEB RESOURCES
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Endangered Species Home Page
Official U.S. government news and information on laws and
services regarding endangered species. The site also includes a photo gallery, kid's
corner, and slide show.
World Wildlife Fund
This site celebrates a "critter of the day," and
contains daily news and information for children, adults, and
educators.
Wildlife Web
The site has hundreds of photographs of animals and links to wildlife-related sites.
Rainforest Action Network
An easy-to-use site devoted to information about the
rainforest. It includes information about conservation efforts.
Wildlife Rescue
The site provides instruction on how to care for injured animals and how wildlife is restored to a chosen area.
California Wildlife Hotsheet
A public board that features information on wildlife in California.
Kenya Wildlife Service
The Kenya Wildlife Service seeks to preserve diversity of wildlife in the African nation.
Species at Risk in Canada
This site, maintained by the Canadian Wildlife Service, provides a
listing of endangered animals in Canada and a search engine for researching
Canadian wildlife and other topics.
Wildlife Web Biodiversity and Conservation Links
An extensive list of links to wildlife-oriented sites.
National Wildlife Federation
A busy page, but it includes links to a variety of topics.
National Audobon Society
Includes profiles of bird species, endangered bird lists, and information on
preservation of bird diversity.
Books on fresh water and the environment @barnesandnoble.com
|
