VANCOUVER - A grizzly bear expert is dismissing claims British Columbia's coastal grizzly bears are dying of starvation because of declining salmon runs as alarmist.
"The likelihood that you have adult bears starving to death as a consequence of a decline in a single food source is very small," Sterling Miller, senior biologist with the U.S. National Wildlife Federation, said in an interview Wednesday.
"I don't believe it's credible from the evidence that I see quoted . . . that there's any reason to be concerned about the population of adult bears."
Miller, a University of Idaho professor who spent 21 years in Alaska studying salmon-eating bears, served on the B.C. government's grizzly bear scientific panel a few years ago.
He said the suggestion grizzlies on the central and northern coast, especially mothers and cubs, died in large numbers last winter because of poor salmon returns is anecdotal at best.
The conservation group Pacific Wild says bear-watching guides are seeing fewer grizzlies fishing at salmon creeks on the coast.
It has called on the B.C. government to cancel the fall grizzly bear trophy hunt and for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to close all chum salmon and mix-species fisheries on the coast to ensure the maximum number of salmon return to spawning grounds.
Tom Ethier, director of the Environment Ministry's Fish and Wildlife Branch, said there are no plans to scrub the lucrative grizzly hunt, which opens Thursday.
Fisheries said there are no chum openings for the central and north coast, where species returns have been depressed.
A purse-seine fishery for abundant pink salmon requires that chum be released, said Jeff Groat, the department's regional salmon fishery manager.
Groat said conservation is one of the objectives in managing the fishery.
"We're ensuring that sufficient numbers of spawners are reaching the grounds to sustain the populations, and wildlife use of those fish would certainly be taken from fish that are reaching the spawning grounds," he said.
Ethier and Miller said there's a direct correlation between the abundance of returning salmon and population density of grizzlies in a given area. The availability of the nutritious fish also affects whether female bears will produce cubs over the winter.
But Miller dismisses Pacific Wild's assertion that because bear-watching guides have seen fewer animals feeding on salmon, the bears have died.
"You cannot draw conclusions about the status of bear populations from sort of random observations along a salmon stream," he said.
It requires several years of data compiled systematically to reveal the population trend, he said.
"But even that's not conclusive evidence, because lots of things can affect the abundance of bears along a salmon stream," said Miller.
Many grizzlies prefer berries to fish and may still be in the mountains if berries are abundant there, he said.
Bears are also not that picky, eating everything from deer and elk to squirrels, berries and fish.
"Bears are the ultimate generalist," said Miller. "They're very adaptive and if they find no food in one place where they're accustomed to finding it they'll go find another food or find the same food some other place. "
"The likelihood that you have adult bears starving to death as a consequence of a decline in a single food source is very small."
Concerns about the long-term impact of salmon declines on bears are serious, he said, "but I don't know that you have to go alarmist based on one or two years of decline."
Ethier said the ministry isn't discrediting what the conservationists and bear-watching guides are saying.
"I think they are keen observers of bears," he said.
"Their livelihood depends on finding and showing bears to the public. But we still think it's early and there's more data and information to come in for us to do the analysis and provide the recommendations."
Grizzly populations have remained fairly steady for the last 10 to 15 years, Ethier said. The latest B.C. figure, dating from last October, was around 16,000, revised downward from 16,890 because of changes to the way the population was estimated.
Miller observed that B.C. scientists have pioneered bear-counting techniques involving DNA that now are used throughout North America.
Ethier said his branch will be watching grizzly cub production closely this year. Fewer cubs were spotted at salmon streams in last year's bear survey.
"If this happens two years in a row, then we've got another thing to consider," he said.
But Pacific Wild's conservation director defended the group's position.
"The thing about the coast, though, is bears really have limited diversity in terms of habitat and diet options," said McAllister.
"To think they have all switched to berries would be very unusual when there are salmon still in the creeks."
The prudent thing to do, he said, is to cancel the grizzly hunt.
