Wildlife management is a technical problem. Wildlife management is a biological problem. But wildlife management is also a people problem. Our values and attitudes define how we see wildlife, how we behave around them, and -- ultimately -- whether they live, die, flourish, or decline.
A little while ago Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks trapped and euthanized a female grizzly bear, not too far from where I live. Grizzlies are all too commonly killed for easily-preventable reasons, and this female was no exception -- simple food-conditioning in this case. The grizzly had learned to look for food in campgrounds. Notably one private campground where the management and campers seem to have been chronically irresponsible about securing attractants. The bear, as you’d expect, quickly learned that the campground was an easy mark for soda pop, food, garbage, and birdseed. In the process, it acquired a dangerous indifference to the people around it. The Bozeman Chronicle talked with the FW&P bear specialist who handled the incident, Kevin Frey, and his response was exactly what mine would have been: Frustration with people making choices that required that a bear be killed.
Bears are intelligent animals. They adapt and learn quickly. Give them any kind of food reward and they’ll be back. Do that more than once or twice and you’ve led the bear into a dangerous pattern.
Food conditioned and habituated bears are a challenge. The general pattern is simple and usually deadly for the bear: they associate humans with food and lose all fear of us in the process. The increasingly close and frequent encounters that this fosters become a safety issue for us as well as the bear. The result almost always is the relocation or death of the animal. As straightforward as this process might be, there is often huge variation in how the people involved choose to describe the problem.
How we choose to define problems is, in fact, central.
Predators illustrate this more vividly than most other wildlife because they are so symbolic -- the bear, the wolf, the lion. They elicit powerful emotions and imagery for most of us. For different reasons and in different ways, but nonetheless powerful, which highlights the extent to which our view of these animals is subjective. For better or worse, predators look different to different people.
It’s no surprise, then, that we often arrive with different perspectives on what “the problem” is when it comes to managing these animals and ourselves around them. As in this case -- was the bear the problem, or were people’s choices and actions the problem?
Removals of grizzlies by managers have historically been flashpoints for assertions and criticism of all kinds. The landowner wants the ‘problem’ bear dealt with. The state wildlife manager needs to be responsive to that demand, but also wants to protect the bear and avoid repetition of the same issues. Some portion of the public is usually angered by the bear’s death. Some of the public is annoyed at rules designed to protect bears by limiting their freedom.
All of these people have framed “the problem” differently.
At a fundamental level, a problem is simply a difference between how we want the world to be and how it is. This makes virtually every problem subjective. Problems arise from what we each want from the world, and so they reflect our individual values. We seek out those people whose world view aligns with our own, which can lead to a self-referencing and self-legitimizing cycle that reinforces conformity of feelings and perspectives within a group. Along with the perception that how “we” have defined a problem is, in fact, the only way. But if we value civility, it’s critical we acknowledge there is never a single objective problem. Any given situation looks different to different people.
I think we would benefit from remembering this issue of subjectivity as we talk about conservation issues of any kind. How we define our problems dictates everything else that follows, including the range of solutions we consider. And that initial problem orientation, although sometimes informed by technical biological information, is entirely a human exercise.
In these cases of bear conflict, for example, each of the stakeholders has articulated the problem differently. The landowner may view the bear as the problem. The easy answer to that problem is to get rid of the bear. The camper may consider restrictive regulations to be the problem. Their solution could be to have fewer rules and prohibitions and/or to get rid of the nuisance bear. The wildlife advocate may view the landowner (as well as the institution of state wildlife management) as the problem. Their answer may be to argue that the burden is on us to more diligently work with and around the bear. And the wildlife specialist who is called in to fix the situation may feel beset on all sides. They may feel that the differing and exclusive demands being made on them are a big part of the problem, to which there is no easy answer.
It’s valuable to have a clear sense of how and why people are defining problems the way that they are. Assuming that we want to work towards an inclusive solution -- that we want to engage with people in ways that are sensitive to their individual ways of framing “the problem.” Otherwise we are left to argue over discrete outcomes. Kill the bear. Don’t kill the bear. Move the bear. Don’t move the bear. More bears versus fewer bears. More wolves versus fewer wolves. More government versus less. And in the process the discussion predictably becomes personalized and destructive and disconnected from the substantive issue, which is disparate definitions of what the problem actually is.
I see value in reframing our discussions to focus on finding creative approaches that help more people get more of what they want out of a situation -- to feel like their concerns are being addressed. This kind of focus recognizes that, even though there are problematic animals, the big issues are rooted in people’s interactions around how they’ve framed “the problem.” Explicitly acknowledging the human side of these issues represents a shift in tone and direction that may be much more productive in terms of addressing common interest concerns -- concerns like livelihoods, community integrity, quality of life, autonomy, and respect.
In the end, what matters most is how we collectively negotiate our differences related to these animals. Arguing over discrete near-term outcomes isn’t necessarily bad. It’s another kind of debate. But the issues of greater importance are broader in scope, I think.
And what about management of large carnivores or predators? I would hazard that the most successful institutions -- governmental or not -- in terms of creating civil and sustainable outcomes, are those that are able to embrace a contextual view of how people define their problems, and then cultivate the resources and relationships needed to create and sustain inclusive partnerships.
And in specific cases like this one? If our collective goal is to reduce conflict -- with bears and between each other OVER bears -- then we should reconceive the problem of this female grizzly. We shouldn’t view it just as a bear getting into trouble over a poorly managed campground. Maybe we should look at it as symptomatic of a community that has different perceptions of the problem -- different perceptions that lead to different approaches to dealing with bears. Different approaches that lead to people feeling frustrated, excluded, and discounted.
Avoiding cases like this one might well come down to an increased focus -- by wildlife management agencies and NGOs -- on cultivating community engagement that self-sustains, so that campers and businessmen and landowners consciously approach their actions within the context of a larger community that acknowledges that its’ members value these animals, and acts with more concern in determining their fate. Of course that requires a uniquely stable, committed, and sustained effort which is a challenge in its own right.
Photo credits: OnceAndFutureLaura; glaciernps
