Wrong decision on study bears

Post date: Mar 11, 2011 2:22:29 PM

Lynn Rogers

The DNR's decision not to extend protection for study bears is a black eye for the state - and for hunters.

Star Tribune

The recent decision by Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr not to extend protection from hunters for study bears wearing radio collars fitted by researcher Lynn Rogers was wrong for the state, wrong for hunters and wrong for hunting.

Rogers, of Ely, had asked the DNR to protect the approximately 14 bears between Ely and Tower, Minn., that he expects to wear his radio collars this fall, when bear hunting in Minnesota opens Sept. 1.

Background:

Rogers has studied bears in the Ely area since the 1970s. He's a controversial figure who occasionally has had run-ins with the DNR, which for a while in the mid-1990s pulled his annually renewable bear research permit.

Arguably, Rogers has at times been his own worst enemy. Years ago, he euthanized two bear cubs he needn't have, wanting, he says, to donate them to a traveling bear exhibit. And he was charged once for berating a hunter who shot a bear wearing his collar, resulting in a hunter harassment charge that later was dropped.

That said, Rogers is smart, genuinely cares about black bears, and, arguably, has done more to benefit these animals and to educate people about them than anyone, ever.

Moreover, in recent years, thanks to his North American Bear Center near Ely, and particularly to his Internet broadcasting of the birth of three bear cubs to a mother bear he calls Lily, he's established Minnesota as ground zero for black bear education, and perhaps research, worldwide.

All of which, perhaps not unexpectedly, has earned him considerable enmity from some DNR researchers and managers. It's derision that either is well-deserved because Rogers' research methods -- the centerpiece of which is his habituation of bears -- are warm and fuzzy but yield little science.

Or, the contrary opinion, DNR researchers and their bosses are jealous of Rogers because of the attention, adulation and funding he has gained for himself and his bears over the years.

The divide between Rogers and the DNR is hinted at in a commentary DNR Commissioner Landwehr distributed to the media Feb. 28 explaining his decision not to protect bears wearing radio collars (including the DNR's).

To some, the commentary suggests also that Rogers' chance of ever receiving an unbiased consideration by the DNR of his bear-protection request is bleak -- at best.

At least five times in the commentary, Landwehr refers to "Mr.'' Lynn Rogers, rather than, more appropriately, "Dr.'' Lynn Rogers, which is how the DNR refers to its researchers and managers who (as Rogers does) hold doctorate degrees.

Additionally, Landwehr, trained in the sciences himself, stretches reason to its bounds when he argues that hunters are at times unlikely to see collars on bears because "most bears are taken in low light at dawn and dusk. It is very likely a hunter could fail to distinguish a marked bear.''

An experienced duck hunter, Landwehr knows well that seeing a collar on a bear, particularly a collar adorned with brightly colored ribbons, is a lot easier than distinguishing, say, one-half hour before sunrise, a hen mallard (limit one daily out of a bag limit of six) from an immature drake mallard, or even a hen widgeon or gadwall from a hen mallard

Similarly, what of buck hunters in southeast Minnesota who now must count 8 points on a whitetail's headgear -- not six or seven -- before pulling the trigger?

Ultimately in his commentary, Landwehr defeats his own position when he argues that "wildlife belongs to all Minnesotans.''

Yes, in fact, it does. And that includes people other than hunters -- some of whom, it shouldn't be forgotten, consider hunting a pastime worthy only of Neanderthals.

That appreciation likely will grow considerably this fall if one of our gunning brethren picks off Lily or another bruin while wearing a moonbeam necklace and munching on a bait pile of snicker doodles.

There's no higher road the DNR could have taken?

People from 132 countries follow Rogers and his bears online, and kids in as many as 500 classrooms are glued to the Internet this winter, tracking the real-time ministrations of Lily and her cubs in their den.

That big bang you hear?

It's hunters once again shooting themselves in the foot.

Dennis Anderson • danderson@startribune.com