Fewer huckleberries equal more bears

LEAVENWORTH -- A shortage of huckleberries in the mountains could mean an abundance of bears roaming down low.

Wildlife authorities are trying to get the word out that there have already been an unusually high number of encounters between bears and people this year, and there’s likely to be more to come.

“It’s a problem we go through every year when the bears get ready to go into their dens. All they have on their minds is food,” said Rich Beausoleil, a bear and cougar specialist for the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife in Wenatchee.

The problem has been exacerbated this year by a shortage of huckleberries, he said. The sweet wild berries are the bears’ food of choice in late summer and early fall before they go into hibernation.

“There seems to be a shortage all over the state in the low areas and a lot of green berries up high that will never ripen,” Beausoleil said. The result is more bears constantly roaming day and night to find food to carry them through the winter.

Beausoleil didn’t have any comparative numbers of bear encounters but he said seven bears have been hit by cars in recent weeks on Highway 2 in Tumwater Canyon between Leavenworth and Coles Corner. The department has also fielded a greater than usual number of reports of bears coming into Leavenworth, Chelan and rural Wenatchee residential areas to raid garbage cans and pilfer pet food.

Residents whose homes border wildlands should keep their garbage containers sealed tight and inaccessible to prowling animals, he said.

People who intentionally put food out for the hungry animals are not doing the bears any favors, he said. Any contacts between bears and people are likely to lead to problems for the bear involved. If food isn’t available, the bears will continue their search in their natural habitat. “You can’t blame a bear for being a bear.”

Don Youkey, U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist for the Wenatchee River Ranger District in Leavenworth, said he has also had more calls than usual concerning bear encounters.

“It’s typically what we see when we have a poor berry crop,” he said. When there are fewer berries, the bears come lower to look for food at campgrounds, orchards and rural residences. “Typically they go for garbage cans and bird feeders.”

The best way to keep the bears away is to keep garbage cans locked up until right before pickup, said Dennis Ryan, Chelan and Okanogan County coordinator for the Grizzly Bear Outreach Project. Ryan said nearly all the bears in the Washington Cascades are black bears that feed mainly on berries.

“But if there’s something to attract them they’ll be there, because the berry crop is short,” he said. He said there are about 25,000 black bears in Washington, about 6,000 of them in the North Cascades.

Therese Ohlson, botanist for the Methow Valley Ranger District in Winthrop, said she’s found lots of huckleberries in a few high elevation areas, but most aren’t ripe. The crop is very poor at lower elevations. She said the shortage was likely caused by late spring frosts that nipped the fruit at the blossom stage. The bears come down to the rivers to feed on fish at this time of year because they need the protein before hibernation. Bear scat she has found show that they’ve substituted service berries and other low elevation berries for the huckleberries. The service berries aren’t as sweet and they don’t digest as well, she said.

Ohlson said she’s heard several reports of bear sightings this year including one of two bears ransacking a tent camp near Rainy Pass. “You have to be really careful with food,” she said.

Beausoleil warned hikers that there is more chance of encountering a bear on trails this year. If bears can’t get all they can eat in one place, they tend to stay active, roaming the forests day and night.

“It’s nothing to be afraid of. But carry a whistle and make lots of noise to avoid that surprise encounter,” he said. “If you warn them, you’ll never see them and won’t have a problem.”

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