DEEP
STOP THE
BEAR TORTURE AND
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Learn the truth
about Dirty DEEP
What DEEP doesn't want you to know
Did you know that Black Bears behave like prey species?
That's because they are!
Black Bears are scaredy-cats by nature. Their excessive timidity is because for most of the four-million-year existence of the species, they constantly were terrified of being eaten by the much larger, extinct Greater and Lesser Short-faced Bears, American Lions, and Sabertooth Cats. To this day, Black Bears, particularly young ones, are victims of attacks by predators such as Jaguars, Brown Bears, and even large male Black Bears. From birth, cubs are taught by their mothers to run up the nearest tree at the first sign of danger. Black Bears use their sensitive noses and ears to detect any possible danger and flee even before they see any actual threat. In fact, studies show that when walking through open fields en route to a pile of good (in this case, garbage), Black Bears will take an indirect path in order to remain close to the few trees in the field in case they need to climb a tree to escape from danger.
DEEP cites the potential aggression of Black Bears as the basis for their management-practices and goals
Their biologists admit that Black Bears will always choose to flee when threatened or surprised.
DEEP argues for the urgent need to control the timid bears by trying to make them even more afraid of humans and to control their numbers by hazing and killing them. DEEP's top bear biologist Paul Rego and others on his team have admitted they are well aware that Black Bears are naturally very timid and "are not aggressive" animals. When asked whether a bear would get angry if they were pepper sprayed, Rego immediately and easily answered "of course not." No bear in the state has aggressively attacked and injured a person. There is one famous case in which a mother bear ran terrified from a jogger's loose dog and while escaping the dog, accidentally ran over the jogger. The jogger simply sustained minor scratches on her leg. DEEP took this opportunity to kill the mother bear, orphaning her two cubs.
Problem bears are just hungry and improperly taught to seek food near homes
Hunger, not habituation and food-conditioning, creates human-bear conflicts
Is DEEP trying to implement the most effective solutions to tackling the problem at the source?
When there are natural food shortages, and bears go hungry, there is a significant increase in bear-human conflict. Black Bears can smell an estimated 100x (at least) better than a bloodhound; sniffing out food miles away is easy for them. Yearlings, which are young bears that have just become independent from their mothers and are fattening up for their first winter alone, are also a little more desperate to find food than are more dominant adults. Perhaps the best acorn groves are too popular with other bears, or they don't know where to find those food-rich areas, so when their noses detect a backyard barbecue or fragrant garbage, they follow the scent. In the end, they're desperately hungry and if they must, they will follow the smell and leave the safety of the forest to try and find their meal for the day.
Attracting bears to homes and roads does pose a threat to public safety, but it is because of the increased possibility of an accident rather than any aggression from a bear. Because Black Bears are so incredibly quiet, their silent investigation of smells in your backyard could surprise you or your pet. And in that moment of panic, unfortunately someone could get hurt. Just like it is the parent's responsibility to baby-proof their homes, it is our responsibility to take the necessary steps to keep innocent bears out of trouble.
"A fed bear is a dead bear" is made true by DEEP, because they practice reactive - rather than preventative - management.
Rather than exhausting non-lethal methods and putting the full force of DEEP behind reducing inappropriate bear feeding, DEEP focuses their resources "researching" bear numbers to argue for a hunt.
Removing attractants is one of the two most effective ways to reduce human-bear conflict. "A fed bear" is referencing a bear that is attracted to your home by the smell of food. Bear-proofing bird feeders, securing your garbage in bear-proof trash cans, and not leaving food out for wildlife are important first steps towards living in harmony with bears.
Failing to take preventative measures to avoid conflict puts the "bear" in DEEP's court... and they are biased to convict.
DEEP prefers reactive methods such as aversive conditioning, relocation, and euthanasia. These methods are not only incredibly expensive and unnecessarily cruel, but also largely ineffective in reducing human-bear conflict. To their credit, they do host educational talks about Black Bears and advocate for the securing of garbage, and they have tried in the past to pass bear-feeding bans.
Their credibility to address the source of the problem honestly, however, vanished when advocates against unnecessary cruelty discovered that DEEP allows their own volunteers - tasked with conveying their bear-proofing message - to undermine that same message by feeding bears systematically from their back porch, near a public road, for years. The food-conditioned bears who were taught by DEEP people to seek out food near humans have since been tortured by DEEP as a result of their "bold" behavior (as described by a DEEP biologist). These bears were not deterred by the torture, because it was applied improperly by DEEP despite costing thousands of taxpayer dollars, and DEEP did not stop their representative's bear-feeding operation until it was exposed by activists.
October 12 & 16
Bear Orange-288 is captured and hazed
DEEP traps a mother bear with two cubs deep in the forest on the border of two nature reserves. After spending 16 hours in the trap, DEEP arrives and drugs her while her cubs watch from the safety of a tree on the private reserve that did not allow DEEP to capture and drug the cubs. DEEP fit her with a GPS collar, then woke her up to torture her for an hour before shooting at her to make her run away. The second time she was captured, they shot at her each time she tried to return for her cubs. Eventually, she hid and waited for them to leave, before finally retrieving her cubs and running away from the trap she has now been trapped in twice.
October 17: Orange-288 and her cubs are eating sunflower seeds in Ginny Apple's backyard.
Ginny Apple is a DEEP "Master Wildlife Conservationist" who gives talks to educate people on the need to secure attractants to reduce the bear problem in Connecticut. Ginny was one of the leaders in an effort to ban bear-feeding in her town. Though such an ordinance is necessary to have to stop inappropriate feeding near houses, the motivation for and application of the ordinance has been to harass those advocating for better, open-minded, and science based management that does not align with DEEP's hunting agenda.
November 21: Jason Hawley , the second-most senior bear biologist for DEEP, admits that DEEP knows Ginny has been feeding bears "for years"
Since September 2020, DEEP has worked with the Hartland Land Trust to trap and torture allegedly "bold bears" deep in the forest along the border of two nature reserves: Hartland Land Trust, and Nature Havens. Despite all the science showing that in order for aversive conditioning to have any effect, it has to be done immediately after the animal misbehaves. Despite the bears routinely being lured to Ginny's house to "misbehave", DEEP instead chose to capture and torture the "good" bears who were deep in the forest, 600-1,200 yards away from the closest homes.
There are cheap, simple, humane solutions that work to reduce bear conflict that work better than the expensive torture that DEEP prefers
Prevention-based solutions are the most effective way to reduce bear-human conflict
Managing Attractants and Diversionary Feeding
The most effective ways to reduce bear-human conflict are to remove all attractants from near homes. In fact, reactive management methods such as hunting, aversive conditioning, or relocation will not reduce the number of conflict incidences because it's apparent that bear-human conflict is not so much a function of the number of bears in the forest as it is the amount of attractants near homes and the severity of failure of wild food.
Managing Attractants: Removing the temptation near homes is an essential step to keeping bears out of trouble. Widespread implementation of bear-boring measures either through law or education is the most effective method. Securing attractants is the most effective method to reducing bear-human conflicts when there is sufficient natural food to sustain the bear population in the area.
In some years, complete failure of natural food for bears makes the bears so hungry that any fear they have of humans, natural or taught through hunting and aversive conditioning, will not keep the starving bears from doing what they have to do to get food. As the changing climate continues to increase the frequency and severity of these food failures, managing attractants will not be enough to keep bears away from homes. Decades of studies have demonstrated the efficacy of diversionary feeding. Although DEEP stubbornly asserts that diversionary feeding does not work to reduce bear conflict, and they endlessly roll out the catchy slogan " a fed bear is a dead bear", in fact, all the evidence proves that a well-fed, wild bear is a peaceful one.
Diversionary Feeding: In response to natural food shortages, providing supplemental food deep in the forest, far away from homes, is a necessary management tactic to complement the securing of garbage and other attractants. Diversionary feeding addresses the fundamental need bears have to eat, which if left unmet during food-shortage years, will drive hungry bears to desperately seek out human food near homes. Although diversionary feeding has been criticized by DEEP for its potential to create problem bears, in fact decades of data prove that exactly the opposite is the case. As seasonal food shortages become more severe with the changing climate, diversionary feeding will become a necessary management practice. DEEP must do its own systematic tests on diversionary feeding in order to reconfirm its usefulness.
DEEP relies on reactive management, which is terribly ineffective at reducing human-bear conflict.
Aversive Conditioning, Relocation and Hunting/Euthanasia
In the 2021 legislative session alone, DEEP allies have proposed five bills pertaining to DEEP and Black Bears: four call for a bear hunt; two intend to prohibit all feeding of black bears and simultaneously call for increased hazing techniques and/or hunting; and one specifically requires DEEP to continue studying the Black Bear population without additional requirements as to the type of research they are required to conduct.
Aversive Conditioning: also known as "hazing", is the torture/punishment of bears so that they associate the punishment with an unwanted behavior. In this case, the idea is that DEEP would use hazing to discourage bears from scavenging garbage and damaging property in the search for food. Much like training a dog not to get into the garbage, you need to apply the punishment by catching them in the act or at the scene of the crime so they understand what they are being punished for. DEEP continues to increase the severity of their punishments on bears, most likely because these methods aren't working. Why? Because as we've described above, they do not tackle the source of the problem.
Relocation: If a bear is repeat offender, DEEP may trap, drug, and move the bear further away from the problem area. Although this might remove one bear whose preferred foraging method is breaking into garbage, it doesn't solve the problem. If the conditions around the area remain the same, another bear will simply take its place, and the expensive relocation will have been for naught. Additionally, no part of the state is remote enough that a translocated bear will not then be quite likely to become a problem for other homeowners in its new location.
Hunting: Hunting might be effective at making bears scared of humans, such that they become shyer and harder to see, however it will not reduce the bear-human conflict. It is proven that a "harvest" (a happy sounding word for "hunt" or "kill" ) does little to reduce nuisances. In fact, comprehensive reviews of bear management plans across various US states showed that the number of complaints about bears increased as more bears were "harvested". It was only in states that relied on non-lethal methods to prevent conflicts (primarily securing attractants) that the complaints were drastically reduced and conflict was resolved.
Why doesn't hunting work?
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Bear-human conflict is seemingly driven by the quantity of accessible, unsecured food, not by the number of bears.
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Hunting is conducted in deep habitat (forests, not neighborhoods), and therefore doesn't target the offending bears; rather it kills the "good" forest bears that are nowhere near homes, while leaving the suburban, garbage-raiding bears unscathed.
Why does DEEP want a hunt?
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DEEP's entire wildlife division is comprised of hunters (over 70% practice hunting according to a 2016 survey) and they have a powerful personal and cultural bias in favor of hunting.
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Hunting means huge financial gain for DEEP: DEEP will be given a large sum of money from a federal pot funded by the tax of firearm and ammunition sales as more hunters register in the state. This is why DEEP's research of populations is blatantly conducted to support a future "harvest" of the wildlife in the state.
DEEP distorts its mission, which is to protect the environment and play a positive role for the state's economy. It does so using its ability to silence critics with their authority and smooth over controversy so that hardly anyone is aware of their glaring conflict of interest. If one were to award DEEP the benefit-of-the-doubt, you might say that their bias prevents them from seeking out the very real and compelling science arguing against a hunt and for more effective, cheaper, and humane methods. However, the pattern of their misdirection and inefficacy indicates a clear awareness on their part that as long as the bear-human conflict exists, DEEP can capitalize on the fear they create of innocent animals to push forward their financially motivated agenda to hunt bears and keep the problem unresolved.
Whatever the case may be, promoting a cruel, ineffective hunt is unacceptable policy from your state's wildlife agency.
DEEP has actively opposed efforts to properly educate the public and implement effective management practices
Unintentional adversary of DEEP: Charles Munn
Innovators trying to solve bear-human conflict, subsidize preventative management practices, and stimulate the economy of the State
2018: Charles Munn, PhD and internationally-recognized animal behaviorist and expert on sustainable wildlife tourism, begins testing of the models and testifies in the committee of the Connecticut General Assembly against the hunting bill, instead demonstrating the clear-cut potential to simultaneously resolve the conflict and capitalize on the natural resources in a way that could reshape Connecticut's economy for the better. DEEP works behind the scenes to continue to misinform the public and maintains that 1) bears are dangerous, and 2) that these proven methods will not work.
2019: Two towns pass unenforceable no-bear-feeding ordinances in an effort to prevent experiments, latching onto the fear that bears would become bolder, and that the tourism proposed in the plan would be exploitative and a nuisance to the locals in the area. Charles Munn stops testing due to the local backlash fueled by DEEP, and is asked by a local nature lover to help him preserve a well-managed natural space through a sustainable economic model. The land has been managed to improve habitat and food availability for endangered species under contract with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a division of the USDA. The results were deemed to be a big success. Demonstrating the need for such projects, teaching people about safe wildlife observation (rather than destructive), and learning to interpret animal behavior through real-life observations in natural settings was the ultimate goal by the landowner, and Munn assisted in developing a model to make it economically and environmentally viable to keep the space as a
2020: Nature Havens is founded as an educational for-profit offering outdoor courses on various species on the land. The courses focused on a range of subjects based on experience level. Due to COVID-19, many people were turning to the outdoors for the first time. The Havens taught inexperienced explorers responsible wildlife exploration skills to keep them and the animals safe while they continued to explore the great outdoors, as well as critical information on the biology, behavior, and management challenges that arise with increased anthropogenic strain on wildlife. Later that year, another town passes an overreaching ordinance that prohibits all wildlife feeding, including the harmless feeding of birds.
DEEP cites the potential aggression of Black Bears as the basis for their management practices and goals
Their biologists admit that Black Bears will always choose to flee when threatened or surprised.
2018: DEEP is approached for their blessing to test a multi-faceted, preventative approach to the conflict: Utilize supplemental feeding to draw bears away from homes, engage nature tourism to fund the research, and to subsidize further education and management of attractants. Paul Rego acknowledged bears are not aggressive, but that this would inevitably become dangerous - all the science contests this position. And made clear that DEEP would not support the effort.
2019: DEEP leads the charge to delegitimize and dismiss the potential for scientific feeding experiments, focusing on the debunked potential danger of getting black bears used to food and people leading to increased problems, while also simultaneously arguing that non-invasive photography and nature tourism is exploitative. Recall that DEEP is arguing for the ultimate exploitation of bears: hunting them.
2020: DEEP teams up with local critics to thwart safe wildlife viewing opportunities by targeting bears deep in the forest of two nature reserves and subjecting them to aversive conditioning. DEEP justified the bear trap claiming there were bold bears in the area, and placed the trap on the Hartland Land Trust's land mere feet from the border of Nature Havens. Over the course of three months, they lured multiple bears into the trap with thousands of calories-worth of donuts after which some bears would wait, trapped and separated from cubs for up to 12 hours before being handled and hazed. Meanwhile, DEEP knew one of their own was feeding these same bears ("for years") not 1 mile away from where the trap was placed. DEEP targeted bears who were in the correct habitat (deep forest, away from houses and people), rather than place the trap where they would be caught in the act and more correctly conditioned.
2021: Multiple DEEP-friendly bills are proposed to allow a bear hunt; one bill requires DEEP to continue their studies of the black bear population. State legislators have been asking DEEP to produce more informative reports to better evaluate the work they are doing. As of February, no reports have been produced by the agency that indicate a data-and-science-driven management strategy, nor a study to evaluate the efficacy of their approaches thus far. Instead, their reports indicate a consistent 11% increase in the bear population (which they indicate will be able to sustain a hunt), and is sprinkled with many photographs of their team smiling alongside unconscious bears: cub and adult.
Bear tourism creates 10x more jobs and is better for the local economy than hunting
Tourism - in every way - is better than hunting.
More visitor spending (12x), direct revenue for the government (11x), GDP (10.6x), direct jobs (46x)
The very remote Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia is 5 times larger than the great state of Connecticut. This reserve is only accessible through a two-hour plane ride from Vancouver (the only flight to the region). The area has a history of local and visitor hunting as well as bear viewing. Hunting in the area produced only a handful of steady jobs, whereas bear viewing generated an enormous positive economic impact for the local and state-wide stakeholders, despite inflated numbers by the pro-hunting studies had demonstrated: Bear viewing was responsible for many millions more in visitor expenditure, direct revenue for the state's government, in GDP, and hundreds of local jobs compared to a handful sustained by out-of-state and resident hunters. This attraction has only one major population center (Vancouver) nearby; with a population of just over half-a-million residents and 6 million international visitors, the market they can tap into pales in comparison to that of Connecticut's bear tourism.
Connecticut has two major population-centers just a two-hour drive away: New York City and Boston! These population centers not only provide 30 million residents within drivable distance to attract to the state for day-trips and weekend travel (60 times larger than Vancouver's population), but are also important hubs for international visitors approaching 11 million to NYC, and 3 million in Boston. These millions of potential travelers can be attracted to Connecticut within a handful of years, easily generating hundreds (if not thousands) of jobs, stimulating the local economy with many millions of green tourism dollars, and generating enough in taxes to help fund more successful wildlife management efforts to improve the lives of residents (both bear and human).
This economic potential is only possible if Connecticut prioritizes the protection and proper management of its Black Bears and other attractive wildlife species, ensuring that they remain safe, unhunted, and well-nourished in well-managed wild spaces.
Connecticut could capitalize on the bear-love that generates the majority of tourism to remote areas on this earth. No other state can compete with Connecticut's potential, as they have scared their bears to invisibility by hunting them (though we note that hunting has not reduced their bear-human conflicts). Forbidding a bear-hunt, properly managing and securing attractants, and managing our wild spaces to be bear-friendly will open up a bright, green, sustainable future for Connecticut.
DEEP's wildlife division has undermined efforts to start Connecticut on this greener, safer, and more lucrative future
Why is DEEP unwilling to change its approach to the better economical and environmental approach?
Since 2018, Charles Munn has testified against bear-hunting bills, explaining his expertise and interest in generating this green economy for the state specifically dependent on living and safe wild Black Bears. His team members invited DEEP to get involved at the start to tackle Connecticut conservation efforts on multiple fronts: reducing bear-human conflict, generating green tourism, and using photo-tourism dollars to fund management efforts. DEEP was unwelcoming to the proposal, and continued to support hunting and aversive conditioning rather than honestly exploring this greener and more successful avenue.
In 2020, a local resident partnered with Munn to generate money and jobs from a green business model, to generate a sustainable income from showcasing and protecting the incredible wildlife-friendly habitat on his property ( which he had improved through federal contracts with USDA's NRCS). Their company, Nature Havens, launched summer of that year offering small-group, all-outdoor field courses to teach guests how to safely observe target species and explore habitats with minimal impact. Due to Munn's previous support for diversionary feeding as a way to not only reduce bear-human conflict, but also ensure more success in early tourism efforts, this separate project came under attack by DEEP and a small coalition that included the Hartland Land Trust (one of which's reserves neighbors the private preserve Munn was working with).
Since then, DEEP has conducted its pointless research on the edge of this budding project seemingly to ruin the value of the bears by making them afraid of people and putting photo-ruining ear-tags on the bears for no purpose other than to continue their research, which has not produced any groundbreaking insights into how they should manage the bear populations.
We've mentioned the financial incentive DEEP has to push for a hunt and continue criminalizing black bears. The Pittman-Robertson Act is an old law that distributes federal funds to wildlife agencies based on the number of registered hunters in the state. DEEP stands to pocket a lot of money if they can increase huntable attractions, and popularize hunting in the state. It is no surprise, then, that they conduct their research and outreach in pursuit of this agenda.