This document last updated on May 20th 2006
THIS
FIELD PROJECT IS AIMING
prevention
of conflicts between bears and beekeepers in
Asia
____________________________________________________
Text
by Alexey Zborovskiy
(Alexei
Zborovski)
Introduction
In nowadays Asia, all bear species, including Brown bear (Ursus arctos), Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), and other, face very serious problems, such as habitat destruction, poaching and hunting. Current increase in Man's selfishness and greed results in both timber- and bear cubs/parts- trade increase, which, in its turn, leads to extinction of many beautiful beings from most places, where they lived just recently. Apparently, the more modern Man wants to have for himself and his family, the less could his younger brothers - wild animals - have.>
Despite, in most cases, bears suffer from people's activities, there are also situations when Man can suffer from bears. For example, in some years (usually – years of poor harvest of pine nuts and acorns, which are the bear's major food), several bears go to forest apiaries in search for both the honey and the bee-pups. A hungry bear can bring many troubles to a beekeeper. It can either destroy, or - at least - damage seriously whole apiary. If we let such animal do what it wants, it would simply leave the beekeeper out of his/her bussiness!
Are all bears do so cause of hunger? Not really. In fact, they - just like Man – love sweet foods. And (in addition), since bears are large mammals, they need valuable food supply. It is due to people, that forests of Primorye become less and less abundant with wild foods, such as fish, berries, nuts and even wild bees. The more we take from forests, the higher becomes the frequency of bear's destructive visits to our beeyards, respectivelly.
For years, the traditional tool, by which local beekeepers protected their hives from bears, was the gun. In most cases, bear visits apiary in the night. You can understand why most shots result in wounding, rather than killing of animal. Wounded bear goes back to forest, where it dies slowly.
So what we're doing... What we've done?
In 2004 we've started to introduce a new sustained method of protection of beehives in Primorye. This method is based on the high-tensile electric fencing systems, which are widely used by beekeepers of some western countries (mainly USA) and also Japan.
How does the electric bear fence work:
1. A bear, being attracted by the smell of hives, approaches the beeyard slowly.
2. A few lines of wires, tensed between the posts, prevents the animal from bumping into the yard (through the short, and a relatively slight, electric shock).
3. After few trials, the disenhanced (but not wounded, as if it were firearms) bear simply goes away.
Most such fences are powered by 12V batteries through the specific chargers (see sample photo above). We usually use 5 lines of wires, but some beekeepers prefer 4, or even 7 rows). The “minus” (earth) -wire is grounded via 5-10 metal stakes. The sufficient grounding is a vital component of such systems! A shock, which our charger provides, is strong enough to keep the bear out, but, at the same time, is quite safe for both healthy people and the animals, like bears.
I, personally, love this system a 1 000 000 times better than the traditional firearm-method. And - I hope – you too!
Here are links to my reports about bears and beekeepers:
Bears
and beekeepers: Russia, Primorye-2004
Bears
and beekeepers: Russia, Primorye-2005
To help this project running, you can always make a donation (see below). But you better contact me first: new_jalsomino [at] yahoo.com. I contribute in bear protection in different regions (and by different methods). So let's discuss where you'd like your funds be used, how etc. By the way: how do you like the idea of having some mutual bear field work with me? We can have wild bear forest tracking for example. Such tracking is a direct way to learn about bears (as well as tigers and other animals). It is also the only way to meet wild bear and take his photograph.
Just drop me few lines about yourself, your experience and preferences, and I'll tell you what interesting things we can do together.