In Nov. 1998, Dr. Bruce McLellan, President of the International Bear Association (IBA), explained the importance of hunting to 22 million Romanians who tolerate living in close proximity with 5-6,000 brown bears because of the benefits of a 5% annual harvest:

"The economic value promotes tolerance of bears by Romanians and bear management needed to provide sufficient populations for hunting. Eliminating or reducing the economic value of brown bears will seriously erode government and public support for bears in Romania. We (IBA) believe that reducing the economic value of bears may also lead to increased proportion of unrecorded deaths of brown bears and thus greater uncertainty of management."

Do Hunted Bears Learn To Avoid Humans?
Research has shown that Grizzly Bears learn to avoid roads and heavily accessed areas (McLellan and Mace 1985; Dood 1986). The mechanism whereby bears learn is complex but the mothers knowledge of where, when and how to travel, feed, den and avoid danger including adult mates and humans, is passed on to her young. Females in the company of males which are shot by hunters pass the experience to their offspring by teaching them to avoid roads and people. Although the research into this complex subject is not conclusive, many experienced people believe that Grizzly Bears in hunted populations are more wary and thus less dangerous to humans.


Many Unhunted Bears Become Problem Bears in B.C.
Although adult females allow some overlap in home range, adult Grizzlies are very territorial and will seldom allow young bears, or a bear of the same sex into its home range, unless there is surplus food such as a rich berry field or a Large salmon run available. Once the optimum number of bears has been reached in a given unit of habitat, new bears recruited into the population are forced to move into sub-optimal habitats, are killed by other bears, or move into settled areas. This leads to human-bear conflicts.