(Source: Beijing Daily)
Since this year, the world has generally adopted home quarantine to cope with the COVID-19 epidemic. With the decrease in human activities, the range of wildlife activities has been expanded. There are many reports of wildlife entering human living areas around the world.
What is the reason for the increase in "bear appearance" events in recent years? Are the two successive bear attacks also related to home quarantine measures implemented during the outbreak? How can residents who live in areas with frequent bear activities avoid conflicts with bears and ensure their life safety?
There was no trace of bear in Jiangyou City more than ten years ago
A mother and her son were attacked by a black bear on their way back to school at around 7 p.m. on May 17th in the village of Shenshui, Majiao town, Jiangyou city, according to authorities. The 7-year-old boy was able to escape, but his mother and two elderly men were attacked and killed by the bear.
Local villagers told the media that they often encounter bears when digging up the mountain for medicine, but the bear attacks people for the first time. Some villagers say they haven't heard of bears for more than 30 years.
Liu Fang’s research on black bear began in 2003 in Tangjiahe Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province. To write her doctoral dissertation research on the "Relationship Between the Spatial Distribution of Asian Black Bears and Human-Bears in Sichuan”, with the support of cadres and staff of Sichuan Wanglang Nature Reserve Administration, she conducted three years of field investigation and social visit in Sichuan from 2005 to 2007. Since 2017, Liu Fang has also participated in the field population investigation project of Sichuan black bear jointly organized by the State Forestry and Grassland Administration and IUCN. “We have surveyed more than 100 counties in Sichuan Province, and the two surveys should add up to five years”, Liu Fang said.
Liu Fang is very familiar with the May 17th incident in Majiao Town, Jiangyou County. “In 2005, we went to Majiao Town to make an investigation and asked people everywhere if they had seen black bears. At that time, they said they had seen very little. We went up the mountain and made a sample line, but we didn’t find any traces of black bears. We confirmed that there were no black bears in the area.”
By 2017, Liu Fang and her partners from Beijing Forestry University visited Majiao Town again. When they arrived, they heard that there were black bears and “ate dozens of sheep”.
Why is there such a change? What happened in the past ten years?
Liu Fang told reporters, "the Asian black bears involved in the accident are widely distributed in China, Japan, Nepal, and other Asian countries, and the mountains around Sichuan Basin have been distributed all the time. In recent years, the habitat of Asian black bears in this area is expanding to areas with lower elevation. According to our observation in 2017, there are some reasons for the appearance of black bears in Majiao Town:
The first is habitat restoration. More than ten years ago, the farmland has grown into a secondary forest or shrubbery, which is rich in black bear food; secondly, many people go out to work. The frequency of villagers going up the mountain is greatly reduced, and black bears appeared more frequent; thirdly, with the strengthening of local wildlife protection and publicity in recent years, the awareness of villagers has also improved, and hunting behavior has almost disappeared. In general, habitat restoration and reduced human disturbance have led to the spread of black bear populations to human settlements at lower altitudes".
The black bear attack on the villagers took place in the evening. According to reports, there were three black bears at that time, and three villagers were attacked and killed at different times. Liu Fang's analysis shows that the continuous injury and death of the black bear maybe since there has been no shooting of the black bear for a long time in the local area, resulting in the decline of people's deterrent power to the bear; secondly, black bears may lack food, but the current season is uncertain; wild animals usually avoid people, but if they encounter people suddenly, black bears may also hurt people when they are frightened.
“There is also an extreme situation in which some individual behaviors of black bears are abnormal and there is a continuous injury to people. This situation is generally called ‘problem bear’, and foreign treatment methods are often transferred to other places or killed directly.”
Liu Fang said that the initiative of black bears attacking people in Majiao Town of Jiangyou is a serious abnormal act and should be concerned.
This incident is not related to the quarantine measures of the epidemic situation
Since this year, in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, countries have generally taken measures to isolate people at home, and human activities have been greatly reduced. In many countries, wild animals began to appear in the streets and communities frequently and enter the living areas of human beings. The human-bear conflict at Qinghai and Sichuan has inevitably brought about similar associations.
Dr. Zhou Jinfeng, Secretary-General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), told the Beijing Daily App that the long-term epidemic has led to a significant reduction in human activities, bringing excellent opportunities for wildlife to expand the area of activity, and the range, scope, and density of wildlife activities have increased significantly worldwide.
"But this is just an occasional reason why wild animals frequently enter human living areas. The long-term reason is that industrial civilization leads to large-scale encroachment on wildlife habitats, which greatly compresses their traditional habitat and activity space. After the outbreak, there was a rapid rebound", Zhou Jinfeng said.
However, in Liu Fang's view, it is difficult to judge the relationship between two successive human-bear conflicts and the COVID-19 epidemic.
Zhuo County of Qinghai Province is located in the Sanjiangyuan area. Liu Fang and the team's research shows that the human-bear conflict in the Sanjiangyuan area has two sharp increasing trends after 2006 and 2015. “The reasons are complex. Since 2000, the Tibetan areas have collected guns and built settlements for herdsmen. Herdsmen’s ability to frighten bears is declining, bears are more and more fearless of people. Multiple factors such as the attraction of the smell of food stored in settlements to bears may be the reason for the increase of human-bear conflicts."
Original Chinese article:
By / Xue Tongtong Modified / Maggie