For the week of November 21 - 27, 2001

Of living bears and Teddy bears

Commentary by DICK DORWORTH

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"Public education about bears and ways to coexist with bears are critical to bear conservation worldwide. The key … is the acceptance and management of bears by people who live near them. What is good for bear conservation is also good for human survival and quality of life. In a very real sense, the fate of all the bears may be decided in the next ten to 20 years."

Christopher Servheen, advocate for bear survival

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An old friend is charged with making a political/environmental statement in the course of doing what he believed was the right thing—releasing a black bear from a federal trap and saving the bear from execution, at least for awhile. The bear had been raiding garbage cans and frightening the inhabitants of a particular neighborhood, and someone called in the feds. They trapped the bear preparatory to the private execution that is the fate of most "problem" bears. My friend was charged with the crime, but he is innocent until and if proven guilty. While whoever did this would presumably not mind making a political/environmental statement, the primary intention seems to be no more complex than freeing the bear, saving its life, helping one bear live a bit more of its bear life. Some view such an act as an honorable, ethical, environmentally responsible way to be a good citizen and friend to bears; others think it is only breaking the law and that the survival of bears should be left to the experts. The case is pending.

Whatever one thinks of breaking the law to free bears or not breaking the law to leave it to the experts, the bears themselves are losing ground.

The survival of bears is an interesting issue, rich in political, environmental, historical, and, in truth, social significance.

Ninety nine years ago this month, then-President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt also gave a bear a reprieve from execution. Roosevelt was hunting black bears in Mississippi. His helpers had chased and roped and tied to a tree a thin and scraggly bear for Roosevelt to shoot. Roosevelt looked at the emaciated creature and determined it would be "unsportsmanlike" to kill it. A more plausible explanation is that the bear was not a suitable candidate for the manly trophy hunting president’s manly collection of stuffed animals he had shot. Presidential spinning of opportune situations and events is not a new phenomenon. Whatever Roosevelt’s intention in setting free the bear, the incident was coupled with a political dispute and turned into a famous political cartoon by Clifford Barryman in the next day’s Washington Post. It was captioned, "Drawing the line in Mississippi." A Brooklyn shopkeeper by the name of Morris Michtom put the cartoon in his shop window next to two toy stuffed bears with black button eyes made by his wife, Rose. The stuffed bears sold immediately, and Michton knew he was on to something. Rose went to work making more stuffed bears and the Michtons got permission from the White House to call their creation the Teddy Bear. It soon turned into an industry.

At least this is one of the substantiated stories of the genesis of the Teddy Bear. It’s as good a story as any and better than most, and the salient point is that that there are far more Teddy Bears in the world today than real, living, breathing, free bears. And the disparity between them is growing. In a very real way, it’s becoming a Teddy Bear world.

The eight species of real bears—Giant Panda, Spectacled, Sun, Sloth, American black, Asiatic black, Brown and Polar—have been eliminated from more than half of their historic range. The remainder continues to dwindle. Populations also continue to drop because of habitat loss and both legal and illegal killing by humans. Except for the brown bear and the American black bear, all species are considered endangered or vulnerable.

Polar bears are the only species to still live in their historic range, but their future is fragile. In the Arctic, the rate of global warming is twice as fast as anywhere else on Earth. The average sea ice thickness has dropped by 40 percent in the last three decades. This is devastating for polar bears because they use sea ice "shelves" to hunt their main source of food, ringed seals. Not only are these ice shelves not as thick, but they do not last as long, reducing the amount of time the bears have to hunt.

Chemical pollution is another environmental threat to polar bear survival. Chemical toxins, especially PCBs, travel in wind and water around the globe, but tend to stay in colder climates. Polar bears are particularly at risk from these toxins not only because they live in these colder climates, but also because they are at the top of the food chain.

One immediate and serious threat to polar bear survival is the opening of the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

The survival of the world’s bears today has more than symbolic similarities to Roosevelt’s Mississippi bear and the federally trapped bear my friend is charged with setting free. If we do not decide killing bears is "unsportsmanlike" or start setting them free to live their bear lives because it’s the right thing to do, then humanity will take another step toward a Teddy Bear quality of life.

Christopher Servheen, a leading advocate for bear survival, says, "Public education about bears and ways to coexist with bears are critical to bear conservation worldwide. The key … is the acceptance and management of bears by people who live near them. What is good for bear conservation is also good for human survival and quality of life. In a very real sense, the fate of all the bears may be decided in the next ten to 20 years."

That’s not much time.

 

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